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The Preaching of Peter: The 
Beginning of Christian 
Apologetic 

By 

JOSEPH N. REAGAN, S.T.D. (Rome) 



THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 












































The Preaching of Peter: The 
Beginning of Christian 
Apologetic 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 

NEW TORE 

THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON 

THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI 

THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY 

SHANGHAI 



The Preaching of Peter: The 
Beginning of Christian 
Apologetic 


By 

JOSEPH N. REAGAN, S.T.D. (Rome) 

li 




THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 










Copyright 1923 By 
The University of Chicago 


All Rights Reserved 


Published June 1923 



Composed and Printed By 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 


©Cl ATI 1015 


I 


JUN 28 1823 


X 




PREFACE 


The present study was suggested to the writer by a remark of 
Professor Edgar Johnson Goodspeed during a course of lectures at the 
University of Chicago last summer. Professor Goodspeed said that 
were he to edit again “The Oldest Christian Apologists/’ he would 
give the first place to “The Preaching of Peter.” 

Much had been written on the subject, but, as the study progressed, 
the problem seemed still unsolved: Was the Preaching older than some 
other known apologies ? Was it really more of an apology than some of 
the canonical books of the New Testament ? Indeed, Professor Good- 
speed himself, in his Story of the New Testament (p. 57), had called 
Matthew’s Gospel “ the first historic apology for universal Christianity,” 
and E. F. Scott had written a book on The Apologetic of the New Testa¬ 
ment (1907). This involved the present writer in the difficulty of 
determining precisely the nature of apologetic in early Christianity and 
of investigating its beginnings. 

The investigation was fascinating, especially in the somewhat 
untouched questions of the relation of Christian Apologetic to Jewish 
and heathen. To determine what “The Preaching of Peter” really 
was; its relation to other writings of “Peter”; its date and place of 
origin; the sources of its material; the reason for such selection; and 
to see what advantage the light thus shed might afford in the study of 
Christian origins—all this seemed a task worth while. But the material 
to be handled was enormous, and keenly felt was the desideratum long 
before recognized by Paul Wendland: “Es waere sehr wuenschenswert, 
dass die apologetischen und polemischen Gedanken der juedisch- 
hellenistichen Litteratur einmal gesammelt wuerden, damit wir deren 
Einfluss auf die altchristliche Apologetik ermessen Koennten .” 1 How¬ 
ever, as an important part of the study was to determine to what class 
of literature the Preaching belonged, as well as the time and place of its 
provenance, it seemed at all events advisable to go through the literature 
of several centuries preceding the appearance of the Preaching in Clement 
of Alexandria’s Stromateis , that is from about 200 b.c. to 200 a.d., and 
note what in any way resembled the known fragments in thought or 

1 Paul Wendland, “Die Therapeuten,” Jahrbuecher fuer classische Theologie, 
XXII, Suppl. (Leipzig, 1896), p. 708. 


VI 


PREFACE 


language. The question of chronology of such significant sources as, 
for instance, the Hermetic Literature, however important in itself, has 
not been discussed here, when it could be reasonably concluded from the 
investigation of scholars that the source in question was at least prior 
to the year ioo a.d. Of later literature, the Clementine and the Barlaam 
and Joasaph romance, the Sacra Parallela and the Pseudo-Cyprian 
treatises, as well as Eusebius and the apologists, have contributed much 
material of value, but whether the use made of the Preaching by 
these was at first or second hand could not always be determined. 

While none of the fragments which it has been thought might 
belong to the Preaching could well be ignored, and while much has 
necessarily been said about the beginnings of Christian apologetic, the 
one purpose of the present study was to determine the Preaching’s 
place in literature, and the writer has tried to present the work which 
convinced him that the Preaching of Peter is the oldest known Christian 
apology. 

He acknowledges his great indebtedness to the scholars whose 
previous work upon the Preaching he has so freely used, especially 
Hilgenfeld, J. A. Robinson, E. von Dobschuetz, and J. Geffcken. 

It was particularly to the living problems with which the early 
Christian apologists had to deal, that the writer has given his attention; 
and it is here especially, in getting a view of those problems in the light 
of their own day, that he acknowledges with pleasure and gratitude 
his indebtedness to Professor Shirley Jackson Case, without whose 
kind encouragement and valuable suggestions the work could scarce 
have been completed. 

Finally, the writer wishes to express his grateful appreciation of 
the many valuable suggestions and kind criticisms and indispensable 
assistance received from Professor Ernest De Witt Burton and Professor 
Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, with whom it has been the writer’s good 
fortune and pleasure to be able frequently to confer in the writing of 
this dissertation. 

The readers into whose hands this dissertation may fall, while criticiz¬ 
ing it as the interests of thorough scholarship and justice may demand, 
will, it is hoped, be mindful of the difficulties under which work of this 
kind during war times is laboring. 

Joseph Nicholas Reagan 

University of Chicago 
May i, 1921 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Abbreviations .ix 

I. Introduction: Previous Study oe the Preaching i 

II. The Preaching’s Place in Literature ..... 8 

III. The Beginnings of Christian Apologetic .... 47 

IV. Commentary on the Fragments. 60 

The Name. Relation of the Preaching to Other Petrine Writ¬ 
ings. Other Possible Fragments. Date. Place of Writing. 

Index ............ 83 

/ 


\ 


• • 
Vll 


































































■ 











, 




















ABBREVIATIONS FREQUENTLY USED 

A-A. Die aeltesten Apologeten, E. J. Goodspeed, Goettingen, 1914; the text 
of Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Melito, and Athenagoras, unless other¬ 
wise indicated. 

Apoc.—Apocalypse of John, or Revelation. 

Apol.— Apology. 

Amim—Joannes Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragments, I (05), II (03), III (03). 

Bousset— W. Bousset, Juedisch-Christlischer Schultrieb in Alexandria und Rom, 
I9I5- 

Charles—R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, I-II, 1913. 

Clem. Strom, or Eel. Proph. —Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis or Eclogae 
Prophetarum, ed. Staehlin, I (05), II (06), III (09). 

Clem. H.R. —The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions. 

Dial. —Justin’s Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, Goodspeed, Die aelt. Apol. 

Dob.—Ernst von Dobschuetz, “Das Kerygma Petri kritisch untersucht,” 
in Texte und XJntersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 
herausgegeben von Harnack und Gebhardt, Leipzig, XI, 1 (1894), 
pp. 1-162. 

Euseb. H.E. —Hieronymi Eusebii Historia Ecclesiastica. 

G.A.L.—Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, of Bardenhewer, Harnack, etc. 

Her. Cor.—Hermetic Literature Corpus (Parthy, Hermetis Trism. Poem., 1854). 

Jo.—John, the Fourth Gospel; I Jo. II Jo. Ill Jo.—The Epistles of John. 

J. C.P. — Jahrbiicher fur classische Philologie. 

K. P.—Kerygma Petrou—The Preaching of Peter. 

L. —Luke, the Third Gospel. 

Mk.—Mark, the Second Gospel. 

Mt.—Matthew, the First Gospel. 

P.G., P.L. —Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Patrologia Latina. 

N. T.—New Testament. 

O. T.—Old Testament. 

T.L.Z.—Theologische Literatur Zeitung. 

T.U.—Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 
Gebhardt-Harnack, Schmidt-Harnack, Leipzig. 


IX 


x ABBREVIATIONS FREQUENTLY USED 

\ 

T.S.—Texts and Studies , J. A. Robinson, Cambridge. 

Zahn For .—Theodor Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Ntl. Kanons und 
der altkirchlichen Literatur , Leipzig. 

G.N.T.K .—Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des neulestamentlichen Kanons: I. 
Das Neue Testament vor Origines, Leipzig, 1887-1889. II. Urkunden 
und Beilage zum ersten und dritten Band , Leipzig, 1890-1892. 

Z.W.T.—Zeitschrijt fuer wissenschaftliche Theologie, Leipzig. 


I 

INTRODUCTION: PREVIOUS STUDY OF THE PREACHING 


The Preaching of Peter is quoted, evidently with belief that it is 
genuine Scripture, by Clement of Alexandria 1 in his Stromateis, or 
Miscellanies , that veritable mine of traditional Christian teaching of 
the Alexandrine School, gathered and put to writing about the year 

200 A.D. 

I. In the Preaching of Peter you may find the Lord called “Law and 
Logos” [Strom, i. 29. 182]. Peter (in the Preaching) calls the Lord “Logos 
and Law” [ibid. ii. 15. 68]. “Law and Logos” the Savior himself is called, as 
Peter (in the Preaching) says [Eel. Proph. 58]. 

II. Peter says in the Preaching: “Know therefore that there is one God, 
who made the Beginning (arche) of all things and has control over their destiny. 
.... He is unseen, Who sees all things; immovable, Who moves all things; 
He needs nothing, Whom all things need and by Whom they exist; He is 
unchangeable, eternal, immortal; uncreated, Who created all things by the 
Word (Logos) of His Power (Dynamis), that is, according to Gnostic Writings, 
the Son” [Strom, vi. 5. 39]. 

III. Then he adds: “Worship (this) God, not as the Greeks .... for 
they, led astray by ignorance, not knowing God as we do, according to perfect 
knowledge, making images of those things, the dominion of which He gave 
them for their use—wood and stone, copper and iron, gold and silver—changing 
them from their (material) nature and use as things for service, they set them 
up and worship them; and those things which God gave them for food—the 
fowls of the air and swimming things of the sea and creeping things of the 
earth and wild beasts and fourfooted cattle of the field, weasels also and 
mice, cats also and dogs and apes, even to these, their eatables, they offer 
eatables as sacrifices, setting dead things before the dead as gods; they are 
ungrateful to God, denying by these actions that He exists” [ibid.]. 

IV. Again he will continue thus to show how: “Neither shall you worship 
as do the Jews, for they too, though they think they alone know God, have 
not experienced Him, but worship angels and archangels, month and moon; 
and unless the moon appears they do not keep the Sabbath which is called 
‘first/ nor keep ‘new-moon/ nor ‘azymes,’ nor ‘feast,’ nor ‘great day’” 
[ibid. 5. 41]. 

V. Then he goes on to say: “As you have learned holily and justly, what 
we have delivered to you, keep. Worship God in a new way through Christ; 

1 Unless otherwise indicated, the edition used in this dissertation is Otto Stahlin, 
Clemens Alexandrinus , Leipzig, 1905-9. 

1 



2 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


for we have found in the Scriptures how the Lord says: ‘Behold I make with 
you a New Covenant, not such as I made with your fathers on Mount Horeb, 
a New Covenant I make with you: for those of the (Heathen) Greeks and 
Jews are grown old (palaia); but we, after a new manner, as a third race, 
worship God as Christians’” [ibid.]. 

VI. Wherefore Peter says the Lord said to the Apostles: “If therefore any 
one of Israel will, having repented, believe in God through my name, his sins 
shall be forgiven him. But after twelve years go out into the world, lest any 
one say, ‘we did not hear’ . . . [ibid. 5. 43]. 

VII. In the Preaching of Peter, the Lord says to his disciples after the 
Resurrection: “I chose you twelve disciples, judging you to be worthy of me, 
(you) whom the Lord desired; having deemed you faithful Apostles, sending 
you into the world to evangelize men throughout the universe, to know that 
there is one God through the faith of the Christ, (which is) mine, making plain 
what is to come to pass, so that those who hear and believe may be saved; 
but those who having heard do not believe, may bear witness that they have 
no excuse to say: ‘we did not hear’” [ibid. 6. 48]. 

VIII. Again he says to all rational souls: “Whatsoever any one of you did 
in ignorance, not knowing God aright, if he, having learned to know, repent, 
all his sins will be forgiven him” [ibid.]. 

IX. Wherefore Peter also in the Preaching, speaking of the Apostles, says: 
“We indeed opening the books we have of the Prophets have found those 
things which (are said) in parables, and those in enigmas, and those openly 
and explicitly calling Jesus the Christ; we find also his manifestation (parousia) 
and death, and his cross, and all the other sufferings which the Jews inflicted 
on him, and the Resurrection (egersis) and Assumption (analepsis) into heaven, 
to have been done before Jerusalem, as it had been written it was fitting that 
he should suffer, and what should come to pass after him. Therefore, having 
learned these things we believed God on account of what had been written 
of him” [ibid. 15. 148]. 

X. And after a few words he goes on again showing that the prophecies 
came to pass according to divine Providence thus: “For we knew that God 
truly ordained these things, and we say nothing without Scripture (proof)” 
[ibid.]. 

Origen , 1 Clement’s successor at the Alexandrine School, refers to 
the Preaching in the following way: 

Now the words of Heracleon are often repeated, quoting from (the work) 
entitled the Preaching of Peter, and it is proposed to make a careful investiga¬ 
tion also concerning that little book, whether it be genuine or spurious or 
mixt; therefore we rather pass it by (for the present) with this one remark 
that, as it is said, Peter taught, “you should not worship God as do the Greeks, 

1 A. E. Brooke, The Commentary of Origen on S. John’s Gospel, I (Cambridge, 
1896), 264. 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


taking material things and adoring wood and stone; nor worship God as do 
the Jews, for they too thinking they alone know God, do not know Him, but 
adore angels and month and moon” [Com. in Jo., XIII, 17. Cf. Frag. XI 
(p. 73, n. 1)]. 

There are several other passages which have been thought by some 
to belong to the Preaching of Peter, but owing to confusion of titles, 
due partly to translation, there is considerable discussion concerning 
the possible identity of The Preaching of Peter with The Teaching of 
Peter, The Sermons of Peter, The Preaching of Peter and Paul, and the 
like. These and other more or less doubtful fragments will be considered 
in chapter iv. 

It is strange that a work of such value in remote Christian antiquity 
claiming and acknowledged to be from the Prince of the Apostles should 
have been allowed to perish. Origen’s disparaging remark may suggest « 
the explanation. Even though he intended but to check up Heracleon’s 
Scripture authorities and refuse to acknowledge the Preaching as an 
authentic work of Peter, his words connote more than this: the Preaching 
had been used by the Valentinian Gnostic Heracleon, and may on this 
account have been rejected with Gnostic writings in globo. Apparently 
it was also in favor with the party which produced the Clementine 
literature, and its remnants are unmistakably discernable in the Homilies 
and Recognitions I Eusebius 2 followed Origen, of course, not only in 
rejecting the Preaching but incredibly minimizing the value and popu¬ 
larity of all the writings current under Peter’s name, except the first 
Epistle. Jerome, 3 or whoever wrote De viris illustribus , is here as else¬ 
where only a faulty copyist of Eusebius. 

The content of the Preaching was absorbed by the second-century 
apologists, and shared the fate of Quadratus and others that perished. 
With the Apology of Aristides, it seems, it crept into the Barlaam and 
Joasaph 4 romance, written probably in the seventh century. Be this 

I M. H. Waitz, “Die Pseudoclementinen Homilien und Rekognitionen,” T.U., 
XXV (Leipzig, 1904), 4. 

2 Euseb. H.E. iii. 3. 2. 

3 Hieron. De Vir. iii. 19; Ep. 70, Ad Magnum 4. 

4 The Barlaam and Joasaph romance, which had long been known in a Latin 
version of the works of S. John Damascene, and a Greek text, had been edited for the 
first time in Boissonade’s Anecdota Graeca, IV (Paris, 1832), 1-365, and reprinted 
in Migne’s P.G., IV, No. 96 (Paris), 859-1240, which is the text here used, when, after 
the recovery of the Apology of Aristides in a Syriac translation in 1889, it was observed 
by J. A. Robinson to contain that apology in Greek. Geffcken, Zwei griech. Apol., 
p. 316, points several pages which may be taken from the Preaching of Peter. Bar- 
denhewer, G.A.L., I, 172 ff.; Krumbacher, G.B.L. 2 , pp. 886-91. 


4 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


as it may, the Preaching was all but forgotten till comparatively recent 
times when scholars recognized its superiority over the literature with 
which it had been classed and attempted to recover the fragments of 
the work of this evidently clear-minded, sober thinker of remote Christian 
antiquity. 

Dodwell, 1 in his 1689 Oxford dissertation on Irenaeus, passingly 
alludes to Origen’s mention of the Preaching. In 1700 Grabe 2 gathered 
the fragments with considerable completeness and commented on them. 
While not believing the Preaching a work of Peter, he thought it written 
shortly after Peter’s death. Another century, however, was to pass 
with but brief mention of the Preaching by writers on the New Testament 
canon, till Kleuker 3 recognized the writer as a Greek Christian, not a 
Judaizer, as it had been thought, but mistook him for a partisan of the 
opposite extreme. Study of the Petrine 4 and Clementine Literature 
drew the attention of scholars to the Preaching, but they saw in it only 
another instance of partisan polemic. Credner 5 collected the texts and 
discussion of them up to 1832. Bleek 6 anticipated the present opinion 
when he characterized the “sog. Predigt des Petrus” as “eine apokry- 
phische Schrift, die nach den erhaltenen Fragmenten einen tiefdenkenden 
alexandrinischen Heiden-christen muss zum Verfasser gehabt haben 
und deren Verlust gar sehr zu bedauern ist.” 

It was Hilgenfeld 7 that first with patient labor gathered the disiecta 
membra of the Preaching of Peter, judiciously discriminating between 
them and the remains of other apparently partisan polemic, arranged 
them in plausible order, and edited them with scholarly annotations 
in his Novum Testamentum extra canonem receptum , in 1866, under the 
title of “Praedicatio Petri (et Pauli).” Besides the fragments from 
Clement and Origen, given above, Hilgenfeld included passages from 
St. Gregory Naz. Orations , Oecumenius’ Commentary on James , Sacra 

1 Dodwell, Dissertationes in Irenaeum , VI (Oxon., 1689), 10-11. 

2 Grabe, Spicilegium patriim, I (1700), 55 ff. 

3 Kleuker, Apokryphen des Neuen Testaments (1798), pp. 267 ff. 

4 E. T. Mayerhoff, Historisch-critische Einleitung in die Petrinische Schriften 
( I ^ 35 )» PP* 304-18; Schliemann, Die Clementinen nebst den verwandten Schriften und 
der Ebionitismus der ersten Jahrhunderte (Hamburg, 1844), pp. 253-64. 

5 Credner, Beitrdge zur Einleitung in die biblischen Schriften , I (1832), 348 ff. 

6 Bleek, “Ueber die Entstehung und Zusammensetzung der .... Sibyllinischer 
Orakel, ” in De Welte and Lueckes Theologische Zeitschrift, I (1849), 144. 

7 Hilgenfeld, Novum Testamentum extra canonem receptum , fasc. IV (2d ed., 
1884), pp. 51-65. 


INTRODUCTION 


.5 


Parallela, Acta Petri et Pauli , the Pseudo-Cyprian treatise De rebaptis - 
mate, and Lactantius Inst. div. (iv. 21), which will be discussed below, 
chapter iv. He thought the Preaching of Peter had been added to the 
Lucan Acts of the Apostles as a “Third Treatise” (cf. Acts i:i). x 
J. A. Robinson, 2 in an appendix to J. Rendel Harris’ edition of the 
Apology of Aristides, discussed the relation of the Preaching to that 
apology, but with too great eagerness to find in it what he wished to 
prove apostolic. 3 Theodor Zahn, 4 while exhaustively commenting on 
the canonicity of the Preaching, at first (in 1889) admitted and then 
(in 1892) rejected Hilgenfeld’s hypothesis of “The Preaching of Peter 
(and Paul).” Zahn derives all this Pauline material from the Acts of 
Paul. 5 A. Harnack, 6 with characteristic acumen and brevity, gives 
the Preaching fragments nearly as Hilgenfeld had given them, though 
not allowing the authenticity of all. Harnack’s remark 7 that the five old 
Petrine writings should be critically studied induced E. von Dobschuetz 8 
to make a thorough, scholarly investigation of the Preaching of Peter, 
commenting on the fragments and the literary discussion of them up 
to his writing in 1893. He admits that the fragments quoted by Clement 
and Origen under the name “Preaching of Peter” really belong to it! 
Of the other fragments, he thinks the “ Petri Doctrine ” and the “ libellus ” 
quoted by Origen to be probably the same as “Kerygma Petri”; the 
passage from Origen’s Homily X on Leviticus , he thinks, may 
(“moeglich”) belong to the Preaching; the passage from Optatus 

1 Ibid., p. 57: “Quemadmodum Petri Kerygma iudaizans Petri Periodois auge- 
batur, ita etiam Actis Apostolorum canonicis vel Lucae deutero logo (Act. 1:1) Petri 
(Pauli) Kerygma additum esse videtur, tanquam tertius logos, qui Petrum et Paulum 
una Romae docuisse vel praedicasse et simul martyrio coronatos esse narravit.” 

2 The Apology of Aristides, by J. Rendel Harris, Cambridge, 1891; 2d ed., T.S., 
I, 1 (1893), pp. 86-99. 

3 See his remarks on a similar occasion, The Gospel According to Peter (1892), 
p. 33: “And so the new facts are just what they should be, if the church’s universal 
tradition as to the supreme and unique position of the Four Canonical Gospels is still 
to be sustained by historical criticism.” 

4 Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, II, 2 (1892), pp. 820-32. 

slbid., II, 2, p. 879; cf. pp. 827, 884 f. 

6 A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, I (1893), 25-28. 

7 T.U., IX, 2 (1893), III, p. 78 f.: “Die fuenf alten Schriften, die den des Name 
Petrus tragen (I. Brief, II. Brief, Evangelien, Apokalypse, Kerygma), sind auf Grunde 
des neuen Fundes eine zusammenhaengenden Untersuchung zu unterziehen, ” u.s.w. 

s E. von Dobschuetz, “Das Kerygma Petri kritisch untersucht,” T.U., XI 
(Leipzig, 1893), 1. 


6 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


de schism , Donat, i. 5, he says, “als sehr zweifelhaft bezeichnet werden 
musste” (p. 134); “was in §§ 8-10 folgt (Strom, vi. 5. 42 f., Pseudo-Cyp. 
De rehap. 17; Lact. Inst. Div. iv. 21) erweist sich auch durch innere 
Gruende als dem K.P. fremd”; and ascribes the “Didaskalia” to Peter 
of Alexandria. While reasonably objecting to some of Robinson’s 
hasty conclusions, Dobschuetz rather destructively controverted the 
results of Hilgenfeld’s painstaking work, and would discouragingly put 
a forbidding seal upon the problems of the K.P. after it had been by 
himself “kritish untersucht,” thus setting constructive study of the 
Preaching back two centuries. Happily, however, Dobschuetz’ too 
rigorous “Kritik” did not prevail, and, as Hilgenfeld observed in his 
scholarly criticism, 1 Dobschuetz, decoyed by predilection for dogmatic 
definitiveness, had practically left the problem where he had found it. 
Hilgenfeld had edited the fragments under the title of “The Preaching 
of Peter (and Paul),” the addition “of Paul” being due to the occurrence 
of that name in one of Clement’s citations of the Preaching. Dobschuetz 
(p. 126) disagrees with both Zahn and Hilgenfeld and postulates a 
“Preaching of Paul.” Hilgenfeld points out the unlikeliness of 
Dobschuetz’ contention that Gregory of Nazianzus should have quoted 
the words of a contemporary, Peter of Alexandria, as “the marvelous 
teaching of Peter,” and reminds Dobschuetz of his own admission that 
the words “of Alexandria ” had crept into the manuscript from a marginal 
gloss, and that there was nothing in the life of Peter of Alexandria 
which would render appropriate to him the allusion to “a weeping 
soul,” as there was in the apostle Peter’s denial of Jesus (Mk. 14:72). 
Hilgenfeld had found in the treatise De rehaptismate mention of a “ con- 
fictus liber qui insc.ribitur Pauli praedicatio, ” and identified it with 
Clement’s reference to “the apostle Paul in the Preaching of Peter” 
(Strom, vi. 6. 43), but thought the saying, “I am not an incorporeal 
demon,” to be taken from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. 
Dobschuetz (pp. 68 f.) contended that the K.P. was related rather to 
the Gospel of Mark in somewhat the same way as the Acts of the Apostles 
is to Luke’s Gospel. He bases this hypothesis on the agreement of the 
two documents in point of literary style. We will return to this point in 
chapter iv, when considering the Petrine-Mark tradition. E. Preuschen, 2 
in his Antilegomena, gives the fragments found in Clement and Origen 
and translates them into German without comment. 

1 Z.W.T., I (1893), 518-41. 

2 Erwin Preuschen, Antilegomena?, Die Reste der ausserkanonischen Evangelien 
und urchristlichen Ueberlieferungen (Giessen, 1905), pp. 88-91, 192-94. 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


The discussion aroused by the appearance of Aristides’ Apology in 
1890 threw helpful light upon the Preaching. Indirectly at least several 
works touching upon early Christian apologetic contributed toward a 
better understanding of its contents and sources. Wendland in his 
article on the Therapeutae, already referred to, 1 and his “ Philo und die 
Kynisch-Stoische Diatribe,” prepared material and invited further 
study. Collomp 2 and Bousset 3 more directly served our purpose in 
their investigation of the sources of Clement and the traditional teach¬ 
ing of the Alexandrine School. But perhaps the most helpful light has 
been shed upon the origin of early Christian apologetic by Geffcken 4 * 
in his study of the two apologies of Aristides and of Athenagoras. He 
had been well fitted for such a task by his preparation of the Sibylline 
Oracles . s Nor should works like that of M. Friedlaender 6 be overlooked. 
But we shall have occasion to return to these later. 

1 Paul Wendland, loc. cit. 

2 Collomp, “Une Source de Clement d’Alexandrie et des Homelies Pseudo- 
Clementines,” Revue de philologie et de litterature et d’histoire anciennes , XXXVII 
(Paris, 1913), 19-46. 

3 W. Bousset, Juedisch-christlicher Schultrieb in Alexandria und Rom , Goettingen, 

1915- 

4 Johann Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten, Leipzig, 1907. 

s J. Geffcken, Oracula Sibyllina, Leipzig, 1902; cf. “Komposition und Entstehung 
der Oracula,” T.U. , XXIII, 1. 

6 Moriz Friedlaender, Geschichte der juedischen Apologetik als Vorgeschichte des 
Christentums, Zuerich, 1913; cf. Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity (1920), 
pp. 93 f. 


II 

THE PREACHING’S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


The Preaching’s place in literature—its nature, date, provenance, 
destination—will best be determined by comparing the known fragments 
with similar thought and language in the literature from about 200 b.c. 
to 200 A.D. 

Frag I. Edward Hicks, 1 in his Traces of Greek Philosophy in the 
New Testament , while apparently not thinking of this passage in the 
Preaching of Peter, very appositely remarks: 

As logos with St. John, so nomos with St. Paul is an oft-repeated and 
characteristic word, and helps us in the present inquiry. St. Paul does not 
confine its use to the Law of Moses; with him it is a much wider term, and 
sometimes almost personal. The word in its ambiguity and wider sense was 
common to the Greek and the Jewish world. In this way it was also itself a 
“trace” of the Greek Philosophy. With Philo there was not a wide distinction 
between the logos and the idea expressed in nomos. If the world was created 
by the logos, by the logos it was bound together, as by an all-embracing law 
[cf. I, 562]. 2 

It would of course be preposterous to attempt to trace these two 
words through Greek and Jewish literature. A few references, however, 
are necessary here. Among the Jews, “the Law” meant more than 
“the Torah,” or Mosaic Law. It was God’s own eternal justice and 
mercy, goodness and truth. Not only was it the object of man’s rever¬ 
ence and study, but of the contemplation and admiration of God himself. 
His “Word” made known his “Law” to men. As the “Word” was 
all but personified, the “Law” was all but adored. Once written down, 
the very writing became a most sacred object. Yet it was not the 
written words but that which those words revealed to man that was 
adorable. Man’s highest hope was to understand and live according 
to God’s Law. “All zeal for education in the family, the school, and the 
synagogue aimed at making the whole people a people of the Law.” 3 

1 Edward Hicks, The Traces of Greek Philosophy and Roman Law in the New 
Testament (London, 1896), p. 51. 

3 Unless otherwise indicated references are to Philonis Alexandrini Opera quae 
supersunt, ed. L. Cohn et P. Wendland, Berolini, 1896-1915, 1 -VI. 

3 Emil Schuerer, Geschichte des juedischen Vdikes in Zeitalter Jesu Christi, I-IIP, 
Leipzig, 1901-9. English translation, II, 387. 


8 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


9 


The Prophets were believed to be sent principally in the interests of the 
Law. The very existence and perpetuation of the chosen people of 
God was first and most of all for the observance of the Law. If the 
Messiah was to come, he was to insure and propagate world-wide 
reverence and faithful keeping of the Law. All creation was for the 
manifestation of God’s Law. Properly to understand and keep the 
Law was man’s main business on earth, and to help him to understand 
and keep the Law was the raison d'etre of the Jewish religious institution, 
the Priests, the Prophets, the Messiah. While the Law without the 
Prophets would have been unintelligible, the Prophets without the Law 
would never have been at all; all that was best was summed up in “theLaw 
and the Prophets” (cf. Mt. 5:17; 7:12; 22:30; 28:19). The Golden 
Rule (Mt. 7:12; cf. Talmud, Sab. 30 b), “ the first and greatest command¬ 
ment,” would be appropriately personified in him who was the fulfilment 
of Jewish and Greek hope, as the Law and the Logos. Says Carl 
Schmidt: 

Der Schoepfer des Menschen ist zugleich der Offenbarer des goettlichen 
Heilswillens, der Uebermittler des natuerlichen Sittensgesetzes, wie es in der 
Entscheidung fuer Licht und Finsternis, Gut und Boese vorliegt. So war 
der Herr in der Zeit vor seiner Erscheinung der nomos kai logos, wie er im 
Kerygma Petri genannt wird, er war der didaskalos, dessen Lehre den Menschen 
seit Adam bekannt war. Und weil die Gebote Gottes resp. des Logos im 
A.T. schriftlich fixiert waren, konnte es bereits Glaeubige und Taeter der 
Gebote in der vorchristlichen Epoche geben. 1 

After commenting on the esteem in which the Jewish law was held 
in the first century a.d., Benn 2 remarks: 

Such assertions might be suspected of exaggeration, were they not, to a 
certain extent, confirmed by ... . later writers .... showing that it was 
a common practice among the Romans to abstain from work on the Sabbath, 
and even to celebrate it by praying, fasting, and lighting lamps, to visit the 
synagogues, to study the law of Moses, and to pay the yearly contribution of 
two drachmas to the temple at Jerusalem. 

Ovid, in his Ars amatoriae (i. 146), suggests the mental picture of a 
Roman girl frequenting the Jewish synagogue, attracted by the purity 
of the law, and the poet proceeds to instruct the lover how to break 
her constancy. Again, when the unfortunate lover is seeking a “reme¬ 
dium amoris” (219 f.) the poet encourages him to be faithful in frequent- 

^arl Schmidt, “Gespraeche Jesu mit seinen Juengern nach der Auferstehung 
(ein Katholisch-apostolisches Sendschreiben des 2. Jahrh.),” 7 \Z 7 .,XLIII (1919), 306 f. 

2 A. W. Benn, The Greek Philosophers 2 (London, 1914), P- 49°* 


IO 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


ing the synagogue on the Sabbath, no matter how inclement the weather. 
Perseus (v. i8ofF.) contrasts the drunken festivities of the Roman 
Floralia with the more sober Jewish celebrations. Juvenal (Sat. xiv. 
96 ff.) comments at length on the Romans learning the Jewish law, to 
the neglect of their own: 

Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem. 

Nil praeter nubes et coeli numen adorant; 

Nec distare putant humana came suillam, 

Sua pater abstinuit; mox et praeputia ponunt; 

Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges, 

Judaicum ediscunt, et servant, ac metuunt jus, 

Tradidit arcano quodcumque volumine Moses; 

Non monstrare vias, eadem nisi sacra colenti; 

Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos. 

Horace, too, alludes to the commonness among the Romans of reverential, 
not to say scrupulous, fear of the Jewish law (Sat. i. 9. 61 ff.): 

Fuscus Aristius occurrit .... meliori 
Tempore dicam: hodie tricesima Sabbata: nin’ 

Curtis Judaeis oppedere ? Nulla mihi, inquam, 

Religio est.—At mi: sum paulo infirmior, unus 
Multomm; ignosces; alias loquar.—Hunccine solem 
lam nigmm surrexe mihi! Fugit improbus, ac me 
Sub cultro linquit. Casu venit obvius illi 
Adversarius: et, Quotu, turpissime? magna 
Exclamat voce, et, hicci antestari ? Ego vero 
Oppono auriculum: rapit jus: clamor utrinque: 

Undique concursus. Sic me servavit Apollo. 

The Sibyl 1 (III, 255 ff.) portrays the Law given by God on Mt. 
Sinai for all peoples, but insists that all would go to ruin should Israel 
fail to keep it (III, 274 ff.). Cf. Ps. 119:92. 

The “Law” “converts souls” (18:8); it is “truth” (119:142); 
“fountain of life” (Prov. 13:14); they who seek the Law will be replen¬ 
ished by it (Sir. 32:19); they who love it will enjoy much peace (Ps. 
119:165); the Law will go forth from Sion and the Logos from Jerusalem 
(Isa. 2:3; Mic. 4:2); it will be far off (Mic. 7:11); it will be torn to 
pieces, and the wicked will prevail (Hab. 1:4); the islands afar off are 
waiting for it (Isa. 42:4). 

In the New Testament the Law is opposed to sin in almost personal 
conflict (cf. Rom. 5:20). Philo draws a strikingly similar contrast 

1 On the allegory of Sib., Ill, 218 ff., 234-47, 573-95, see Friedlaender, pp. 49 ff. 


THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


II 


(ii. 195). “The perfect law of liberty” (Jas. 1:25; cf. Gal. 5:14) had 
also been spoken of by Philo. 1 Rom. 10:4 seems to call Christ the 
“Perfect Law”; “The End of the Law is Christ.” Gal. 3:24 makes 
“the Law a Pedagogue unto Christ.” Heb. 10:1-10 seems to identify 
“the Law” with the one “who comes into the world to do God’s will.” 

What the Law was to the Jews, Logos was to the Greeks. The 
Logos theory had supplanted nearly every other as an explanation of 
the universe. “Der Logos ist also nach den Bestimmungen .... das 
ewige Gesetz der Weltbewegung, wie sich diese in dem Streite, das 
heist dem Umfassen der Gegensaetze zeigt.” 2 Logos with Heraclitus 
is both Nomos and Logos, creating and harmonizing the universe. 
Logos is also the principle of intelligent life in all men. 3 

Though Plato 4 and Aristotle make no mention of the Logos theory, 
it found its way into all the later schools of Greek philosophy, blended 
with Anaxagoras’ nous , Plato’s idea, and Aristotle’s physics. According 
to the Stoics the cosmos is a living thing, and its life-principle is the 
Logos, though it is called nomos quite as frequently. 5 Not only did 
the Stoics commonly consider the Logos only one, but at times almost 
personified it, as the “Ruler,” “King” of all things human and divine. 6 

1 ii. 452; Hicks, op. cit., p. 52; cf. Rom. 2:15. 

2 Max Heintze, Die Lehre vom Logos in der griechischen Philosophic (Oldenberg, 
1872), p. 16. He quotes (p. 18) Stobaeos (Eel. i. 60) for a definition of Eimarmene: 
“Logos ek tes enantiodromias demiourgos ton onton.” This cosmic principle Hera¬ 
clitus sometimes calls dikg or dikaion (p. 23). “Fragen wir nun nach der eigentlichen 
und naechsten Bedeutung des Wortes Logos bei Heraklit, so konnte als solche: Rede, 
Ausspruch, oder Verhaeltniss, oder auch Vernunft angenommen werden” (p. 54). 
But we must not think Heraclitus’ Logos mere immaterial thought. “So darf man 
sich den Logos nicht immateriall vorstellen, umgekehrt nichts materielles ohne diesen 
Logos, und wir muessen dennach dei Heraklit trotz seines Fortschrittes gegen die 
frueheren Philologen den reinsten Hylozoismus anerkennen, ebenso wie den reinsten 
Pantheismus, mag nun das Feuer als Gott betrachtet worden sein, wie wir bei Clemens 
(Cohort. 42 C) angefiihrt finden, oder der Logos, wie wir aus der Bezeichnung ‘goet- 
tlicher Logos’ bei Sextus schliessen koennen (Sextus Math. vii. 127 ff., 398 ff.)” (p. 27). 

3 Heraclitus apud Sext. Math. (Heintze, op. cit., p. 55). 

4 According to Plato in one place (Diels, Doxogr. graec., p. 323), “Eimarmene” is 
“logos aidios kai nomos aidios.” 

s Cf. Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus (Stob. Eel. i. 1. 12; Arnim, S.V.F., I, 537). Also 
Diog. Laert. vii. 88 (Arnim, I, 43), with which read Tertullian Apol. 21, and Lactantius 
Inst. div. i. 5. Minutius Felix summarizes it thus: “Zeno naturalem legem atque 
divinarum .... omnium esse principium” (Octavius 19. 10). The argument re¬ 
occurs frequently in Cicero’s De natura deorum. 

6 Marcianus lib. I institut. (I, 11, 25, Mommsen; Arnim, I, 314). 


12 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


The Logos is the source of spiritual power, of fate or providence, of 
intelligence and virtue in man, and of order and beauty in nature. 1 
Indeed it identified nature and God. “Quid enim aliud est natura 
quam deus et divina ratio toti mundo partibusque eius inserta” (Seneca 
De benef. iv. 7. 1). 

In the Hebrew Scriptures the Word of the Lord had been used in a 
way strikingly similar to the Greek use of Logos . 2 “And God said: Be 
light made” (Gen. 1:3). “The Word of the Lord came to Abraham” 
(Gen. 15:1). “Hear this word: .... the House of Israel is fallen” 
(Amos 5:1-8). “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made” 
(Ps. 33:6). Cf. Isa. 55:11; Zach. 5:1-4; Ps. 106:20; Ps. 147:15. 
The Septuagint translated all such expressions by the Greek Logos. 
In rabbinical Hebrew, or Aramean, literature the words memra and 
dibbur are used as close synonyms of Logos. Quite generally the Targums 
render “the Lord” by “the Word of the Lord” wherever there is any 
implication of relation to the world which would seem incompatible 
with the Jewish concept of God. Thus Ps. 33:6 is rendered (in Tal. 
Mek. Beshallah): “The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world 
by the maamar.” In the Targum on Gen. 7:16: “The memra brings 
Israel nigh unto God”; to Gen. 11:8: “The memra saved Noe from the 
flood”; to Isa. 56:13, it is the memra who will comfort Jerusalem “as 
one whom a mother caresseth”; to Zach. 12:5: “In the memra redemp¬ 
tion will be found.” So also in Jewish apocalyptic, “The Word of the 
Lord is sent by an angel to Abraham” (Book of Jubilees 12:22); “Lord, 
Thou speakest on the first day of creation: Let there be heaven and 
earth; and Thy Word hath accomplished the work” (IV Ezra 6:38). 

Under Greek influence in Alexandria the Jews spoke not only 
of “The Word of the Lord” as coming to the Prophets and announced 
by them to the people, or as creating and governing the world; the Logos 
now meant for them a cosmic principle giving existence, order, beauty, life, 
intelligence to things, dwelling especially in the human mind, not only dis¬ 
tinguishing man from beast, but making the human soul a spark, as it 
were, of divine life and intelligence, and mediating between God and 
man. The passages attributed by Eusebius ( Praep. ev. xiii) to the 
Alexandrine Jew Aristobulus, though probably not older than the middle 

1 Dio Chrys. Or. xxxvi. 37, apud Arnim, II, 1129; Jamblicus De Anima (Stob. 
Eel. i. 372; Arnim, II, 1128); and Stob. Eel. i. 79; Arnim, II, 913 (cf. Cic. De divinatione 
i- 55- 125). 

2 Cf. Kohler, Jewish Theology (New York, 1918), pp. 197 £f.; and his articles in 
the Jewish Encyclopedia, “Nemra,” “Sekeinah,” and “Metatron.” 



THE PREACHING’S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


13 


of the first century b.c., represent some of the earliest extant attempts 
of the Alexandrine Jews to harmonize Hebrew revelation with Greek 
philosophy by means of gnostic allegory. Wisdom (sophia), or Logos, 
is the light which God first created, in which all other things were 
created, and in which man is given knowledge. 1 The Logos is the 
spirit or breath of God, the Holy Spirit, the Divine Spirit. Jesu Sirach 
and the Wisdom of Solomon speak of the Logos in terms of Greek philoso¬ 
phy in a manner which comes very near to the meaning of the words 
in the Preaching 2 

With Philo 3 the Logos is the creative word of God; the angel of 
Jehova, intermediate between God and the world; the Platonic idea of 
ideas; the Stoic world-soul. In his confusion and inconsistency, he is 
an unconscious witness of varying traditions of the Alexandrine philoso¬ 
phy. The upward trend which Posidonius had given to religious 
thought is plainly discernible in Philo. 

Posidonius was the most influential teacher of philosophy in the 
Mediterranean world in the first hah of the first century b.c. Born 
at Apamea in the Orontes valley, ca. 135 b.c., well read and widely 
traveled, he combined what was best of Oriental and Greek learning 
into an eclectic system which directly affected the religious and ethical 
thought of succeeding ages. Astrological elements had been trans¬ 
planted from Chaldean to Grecian soil by Berosus, a priest of Bel, about 
two centuries before. It will be recalled that the greatest teachers 
at the Stoa were from Tarsus, where especially these Chaldean elements 
had found a congenial abode. But at Posidonius’ time many, if not 
all, the schools of Greek philosophy had gone to impossible lengths of 
materialism and skepticism, and men who craved better things willingly 
received the new teaching which opened to them a spiritual world of 
beautiful hopes. Cumont says of Posidonius: 

Brought up on Plato and Aristotle, he was equally versed in Asiatic 
astrology and demonology. More of a theologian than a philosopher, in mind 

1 Heintze, op. cit., pp. 190 ff., quoting Euseb. Prep. ev. xiii. 12. 664 C. 

2 Cf. Wisdom of Solomon, 1:7; 2:2; 7:25; 8:1; 8:4; 8:6; 9:1-10:1; i8:isf.; 
and read M. Friedlaender, op. cit., p. 63, n. 1. 

3 For the Logos in Philo cf. Norman Bentwitch, Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria, 
(Philadelphia, 1910), pp. 144-60; also pp. 104-31, “Philo and the Torah.” Cf. 
James Desmond, Philo Judaeus (London, 1888), I, 27 f.; II, 156-273. For a detailed 
and classified list of passages cf. C. G. L. Grossman, Quaestionum Pkilonearum, etc., 
II, 3 ff. It is remarkable that these writers make no mention of Philo’s indebtedness 
to Poseidonios. See Wm. Bousset, Juedisch-christlicher Schultrieh in Alexandria und 
Rom (Goettingen, 1915)- 


14 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


more learned than critical, he made all human knowledge conspire to the 
building up of a great system, the coping of which was enthusiastic adoration 
of God who permeates the universal organism. In this vast syncretism all 
superstitions, popular or sacerdotal, soothsaying, divination, magic, find their 

place and their justification.The symbolism of Philo the Jew is often 

inspired by his picturesque eloquence. 1 

Manlius, Augustus, Tiberius, were his disciples in astrology, and it 
was from his teaching that the Emperor conceived himself to be “deus 
et dominus natus.” Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, and the other great 
eclectic philosophers continued his teaching. But it was especially 
at Alexandria that the neo-Pythagoreans and neo-Platonists mediated 
between his and Philo’s thought. Between the invisible God and the 
world of sense there intervene various grades of beings, angels and 
archangels, all of which at times Philo calls logoi. Human souls are 
such logoi. But it is especially as mediator between God and the world 
that the logos develops in Philo’s thought from the archetype of things 
in the mind of God, through the expression of that divine idea as “the 
son of God,” “the only-begotten of the Father,” even to “another 
god.” 2 This was the crux of all those theologies which attempted to 
bridge the chaos between a transcendent God and the material world 
by the hypothesis of an intermediate Creator. 

It was doubtless this difficulty which exposed the theological thought 
of the time to Hermetic influence. 3 This literature has suffered much 
transformation within Christian times, but it is generally admitted that 
its salient characteristics are not later than the first century a.d. It 
represents God creating the world by his Logos, the Logos being his 
Son, consubstantial with him, the Father; it speaks of revelation, faith, 

1 F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York, 
1912), pp. 84 f. 

2 Quaest. in Gen. ii. 62; Frag. II, 625; cf. Euseb. Praep ev. vii. 13. 

3 Cf. Her. Cor. xi. 11. There has been of late much discussion over the Hermetic 
Literature. Cf. G. R. S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes (London, 1906); R. Reitzen- 
stein, Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-agyptischen und friihchristlichen Literatur 
(Leipzig, 1904); Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 19, 93 ff., 
Ir 3 > T 55 f-> 158 f -5 Zwei Religionsgeschichtliche Fragen (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 83-111; 
G. Parthey, Hermetis Trismegisti Poemander (Berlin, 1854); R. Pietschmann, Hermes 
Trismegistus nach agyptischen und orientalischen Uberlieferungen (Leipzig, 1875). 
Cf. Her. Cor. i. 6. 8 f., 10, 12, 21-27, 29 f., 32; ii. 5 - 12, 14 f., 17; iii. 1; iv. 1. 3-6, 8; 
v. 11; viii. 5: ix. 10; x. 7, 9, 14, 24, 25; xi. 11, 14, 22; xii. 7. 8, 18, 20 f.; xiii. 3 f. 
7, 14 f., 17, 21 f.; xiv. 8. 10. 





THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


15 


repentance, baptism, grace, regeneration, in language familiar to Chris¬ 
tian theology. Especially like our Preaching is the use of Logos. 1 

Philo holds firm to his belief in one God, but he yields, as do Justin 
and some other early Christian theologians, to the extent of admitting 
some sort of divinities between God and man, especially the Logos- 
Archangel, of whom he speaks in language at once reminding one of the 
Hermetic Literature and of the Fourth Gospel. 2 Philo’s beautiful 
allegory, “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” applied to the Logos, anticipates 
the Christian “Good Shepherd” parables. 3 But “the Lord” he is 
speaking of here is not “the Supreme Father,” but that “other god,” 
of whom he speaks “en Katakresei.” 4 This is the “Logos mesites” 
of whom he speaks in his commentary on Deut. 5:2. 

In the New Testament we find nothing to compare with the K.P. 
Logos, except in the writings of John. 5 “In the beginning was the 
Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God ” (Jo. 1:1). 
“The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, 
glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” 
(1:14). In the Apocalypse (19:13-16) is seen a white horse; and the 
rider’s name is “Faithful” and “True.” His garments are sprinkled 
with blood, and his name is “the Logos of God.” Like the Logos in 
Wisdom (18:15-16), he is a conqueror. On his garments is written, 
“ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” 

Aristides’ Apology 6 repeatedly uses nomos and logos in a way that 
suggests the Preaching. There is a passage in the Shepherd of Hennas 1 
which is certainly related to this passage of the K.P. “This tree, large 
and shading the plains and the mountains and all the earth, is the Law 
(nomos) of God given to the whole world; and this Law is the Son of 
God, preached to the ends of the earth; and the people that are under 
the shade are they that have heard the Preaching and believed on him.” 
Compared with K.P. VI and VII, the Shepherd seems to be quoting 

1 Her. Cor. i. 9, 10, 12, 21; iv. 4; cf. Just. 1 Ap. 22. 2. 

2 De agric. i. 308, Quis rer. div. haeres sit i. 501 ff., apud Grossmann, Quest. Phil., 
II, 57 . 

3 Cf. Friedlander, op. cit., pp. 71 ff. 4 See p. 14, n. 2. 

s Jo. 1 :1, 14; cf. I Jo. 1:1; Apoc. 19:13-16, 22, 13; cf. E. F. Scott, The Fourth 
Gospel (Edinburgh, 1906), pp. 145-75; Hastings, Diet. Bibl., art. “Logos.” 

6 Aristides Apol. xiii. 7, suggests our passage of the K.P. by the repetition of 
nomoi and logoi. 

7 Pastor Hermae. Sim. viii. 3.2. 


i6 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


“the Preaching” by name. The Letter to Diognetus 1 speaks of “the 
invisible God sending to men His Logos .... not an angel .... but 
the creator ( demiourgos ) of all things.” Melito 2 uses nomos and logos 
in suggestive proximity. The “old books” he mentions agree fairly 
well in contents with the Preaching and the books with which it appears 
in Clement. Justin 3 uses logos in a way that evinces his familiarity with 
the meaning it has in K.P. and the Fourth Gospel, and mentions its 
use in the Hermetic Literature and by Valentinus and others. Tatian 4 
speaks of the nomos of God and “the power ( dynamis ) of His Logos.” 
Athenagoras 5 speaks of “the logos of the Father, the Son of God,” and 
human and divine nomos and logos. Carl Schmidt, in The Sayings of 
Jesus , Aetheopic, c. 17, says: “Ich bin sein vollkommenes Wort”; 
Coptic: “Ich bin der Logos, ich bin ihm geworden ein Etwas.” 6 

Frag. II. That there is “ one God ” is too common in Scripture for 
comment. The Sibyl frequently and emphatically insists “there is 
one God.” 7 The Jews clung tenaciously to this belief, at least in theory, 8 
even if the charge was frequently preferred against them, as we shall 
see (IV), that they adored angels, and Philo found himself, as has already 
been observed, struggling with the same “other God” difficulty which 
the Jew Trypho in the Dialogue (54. 2) makes Justin try in vain to refute. 9 
The Jew Trypho says to Justin {Dial. 50): “You seem to have come 
out of a great conflict with many persons about all these points we have 
been searching into and therefore quite ready to return answers to all 

questions put to you.How can you show that there is another god 

besides the maker of all things? And then you will show that he 
submitted to be born of the Virgin.” Justin replies, quoting Isa. 39:8; 

1 Ep. ad Diogn. vii. 1-2. 

2 Melito iii (Goodspeed, Die aeltesten Apologeten, p. 309). 

3 lustin Appendix 6. 35 cf. 10. 1; Dial. 93.3,105:11; 121:2; 122:1-2,5; 123:1-2. 
I Apol. 10:6; 14:5; 23:2; 32:8; 32:10; 36:1 (cf. 34:8); 46:2-6; 63:4; 63:10, 15. 
Specially noteworthy is the allusion to Hermes in 22:1-2; cf. Dial. 54:2. The mention 
of the “heretics,” including Valentinian, in connection with this teaching in Dial. 
35:6, is also noteworthy. 

4 Tatian Or alio ad Graeco s vii. 2. 

5 Athenagoras Supplicatio 10. 2; cf. 16.2; 24. 1; 4. 3; 19. 1-2; 32. 2. 

6 Carl Schmidt, “Gespraeche Jesu,” T.U., XLIII, p. 56; cf. c. 30, p. 129. 

7 Sib., Frag. I, 7 f. (Geffcken’s text); cf. Frag. I, 32 ff.; Frag. Ill, 3 ff., n ff. 

8 W. Bousset, Die Religion des Indentions im neutestementlichen Zeitalter 2 (Berlin, 
1906), pp. 347-67. 

9 Aet. Plac. i. 7. 32 f., Diels. 



THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


17 


40:1-17. Trypho says it is ambiguous, impertinent. Justin admits 
that it is, unless viewed in its fulfilment in Christ, and he reviews at 
length the Scripture proofs of his opinion, insisting that Christ is god 
because “his blood is from the power of God, not seed of man, not a 
man of men, begotten in the ordinary course of humanity” {Dial. 54). 

Trypho asks proof which is not allegorical {Dial. 55), and Justin promises 
to give it, but goes into a lengthy discussion of the divine generation of 
the Logos, 1 and draws parallel instances from Greek mythology of gods 
being born of virgins, as Perseus of Danae {Dial. 67), and tells Trypho 
he should be ashamed to claim less for Jesus, and accuses the Jews of 
having cut out of the Scriptures those portions, still found in the Septu- 
agint, foretelling the circumstances of the birth and life and death of 
Christ {Dial. 71). Justin further compares and contrasts the Christian 
beliefs about Jesus with the Greek mythology about Dionysus and 
Hercules “who died and rose again and ascended to heaven” (where 
it is interesting to note the Chaldean influence over Greek mythology, 
introducing the idea of “ascension to heaven” in addition to dying and 
“going down” to Hades and “coming up” to life again). But that 
Justin does not mean to say that Jesus is God, in the full sense that he 
speaks of God the Father, is plain from what he says in Appendix 6, 
where he excludes even a name of God, so transcendent is He: “The 
appellation God is not a name. He is older than any name. Father, 

God, Creator, Lord, Ruler, are not names, but words of praise or designa¬ 
tions of functions. But His Son, who is alone called Son by the Lord, 
the Logos begotten before all creatures .... is called Christ from 

being anointed.Jesus, the name of the man and Savior, has 

significance.” And in the Apology (chap. 61) he says: “No one can 
utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare say that there 
is a name, he raves with hopeless madness.” 

Similarly, the objection of Celsus: “How should we deem him a 
god who .... performed none of his promises .... was condemned 
.... was found attempting to conceal himself, endeavoring to escape 
. . . . was betrayed by his own disciples?” Origen answers (ii. 9): 

Even we do not suppose the body of Jesus to have been god .... nor 

even his soul.God is believed to be He who employs the soul and 

body of the Prophet as an instrument .... as the Greeks consider God to 
speak through the Pythian priestess. So, in our opinion, it was the Logos 
God, the Son of the God of all things, who spoke in Jesus these words: “lam 
the way, the truth, and the life.” .... We therefore charge the Jews with ✓ 

1 Just. Dial. 61. 1, 3. 



i8 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


not acknowledging him to be god, to whom testimony was borne in many 
scriptures by the Prophets, that he was a mighty Power of God, and a god 
next to the God and Father of all. 

Like Justin (Appendix 6) above quoted, Origen (c. Cels. ii. 64) says: 
“Although Jesus was only a single individual, he was nevertheless more 
things than one, according to the different points from which he might 
be regarded.” 

Athenagoras, refuting the heathen calumny that the Christians 
were atheists, says (, Suppl . 10): 

The Christians believe in God and in His Son, the Logos, who is the first 
product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the 

beginning, God, Who is eternal Mind, had the Logos in Himself).But 

inasmuch as he came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all things 

material, which lay like fallow land.The Holy Spirit also .... we 

assert to be an effluence of God.We recognize also a multitude of 

angels and ministers .... to occupy themselves about the elements. 

“Poets and philosophers have not been counted atheists for inquiring 
concerning God in His works, by whose Spirit they are governed, teaching 
He must be one” (chap. 5). “Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics .... 
teach that matter is permeated by the Spirit of God, Who is one; for 
God is an artistic fire, advancing methodically to the production of the 
several things in the world by His spermatic logoi”—a common opinion 
of the Stoics. 

However, we must not underrate the correctness of the heathen 
accusation that the Jews “worshiped no gods,” on which account 
principally they were persecuted, as we know from Philo’s and Josephus’ 
answer to Appion’s (ii. 6) charge: “Quomodo ergo si sunt cives, eosdem 
deos quos Alexandrini non colunt?” as we shall see when speaking of 
Jewish apologetic. Indeed, much of Philo’s work is apparently in defense 
of Jewish monotheism. The same may be said of many of the Old 
Testament canonical books; certainly of those written in Alexandria. 
Read, for instance, the twelfth chapter of Wisdom. In the New Testa¬ 
ment faith in one God is earnestly insisted upon. Paul nowhere calls 
Jesus God, though he places him “above all things,” next to “God 
blessed forever,” to be whose people is the crowning privilege of Israel. 1 
Matthew, John, and Luke become apologists of monotheism while main¬ 
taining the divinity of Christ. 

1 Rom. 9:3-5; cf. Col. 1:15; Jo. 17:3; Mt. 4:1-10, the temptation culminating 
in Jesus’ words (Deut. 32:43, LXX, “the Lord God shalt thou adore, and Him only 
shalt thou serve,” etc.), Rom. 3:30; I Cor. 8:4-6. 




THE PREACHING’S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


19 


Nor was such apologetic anything new. Not only the Jews, but 
the Greek philosophers had been contending for monotheism. Cleanthes’ 
beautiful hymn to Zeus reiterates the oneness of God. Plutarch 1 quotes 
the opponents of Epicurus, insisting that “God is not only immortal 
and blessed, but also philanthropic, kind, and beneficent”; and himself 
appeals to Chrysippos and Cleanthes in support of his opinion that 
“heaven, and earth, and air, and sea, of all these there is nothing 
imperishable and eternal but the one only God.” 2 Diogenes Laertius 3 
repeats the old opinion that “there is one God, and Mind, and Fate, 
and Zeus.” The Stoics quite generally were pantheists, in the sense 
that they thought the universe one living Thing, though some preferred 
a dualistic concept. The neo-Pythagoreans and neo-Platonists, 4 under 
the influence of Posidonius, took a more spiritual view of the world, 
which was rather eclectic to the extent of admitting both monotheists 
and polytheists. Nor is it always possible to say whether a particular 
philosopher, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, is really a monotheist, a deist, 
an agnostic, or what. 

Apparently there was little, if any, practical monotheism among the 
common people of this period. Indeed we witness a painful struggle 
coming upon the Christian church when it begins to insist strictly on 
the monotheism it bad inherited in philosophical theory rather than in 
popular practice. Various epithets were used to distinguish “ the 
Great God,” just as the pagans spoke of “Jupiter Optimus Maximus.” 
Between “the Great God” and the world of man there were countless 
beings of superior powers, and these the pagans, even while contending 
for monotheism, called “gods” (I Cor. 8:4-6). The Jews called them 
“angels,” and the Christian writers borrowed or created terminology 
as the occasion demanded, till at length authority fixed the terminology 
of the “Trinity of Persons” and “Unity of Nature” of God. 

The Shepherd of Hernias (. Mand . i. 1) has something very like this 
passage of the K.P. “First of all, believe that there is one God,” etc. 
Aristides repeatedly affirms there is one God ( Apol. 1.3; 13. 5). Simi¬ 
larly Justin (I Apol. 16. 6): “It is right to worship the one God”; 
Athenagoras (Suppl. 6. 4) commends the Stoics for acknowledging one 
God, and says (8. 1): “We know and rightly believe, there is one God”; 

1 Plutarch De Com. Not. c. 32, p. 1075 e (Arnim, II, 1126). 

2 Ibid. c. 31, p. 1066 a (Arnim, I, n. 536). 

3 Diog. Laert. vii. 135 (Arnim, II, n. 280). 

4 E. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen*, III, 2 (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 129 ff. 


20 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


and he sets about to demonstrate (8.1) that more than one God is 
impossible. 

“In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1) was 
a familiar expression in Hebrew Scripture. But the “Beginning,” 
Arche , 1 like the logos, was an expression of Greek philosophy. It is 
used in both meanings in the Johannine writings: Jo. 1:1, “In the 
beginning” is apparently the Hebrew use; 8:25, “The Beginning, who 
also speak to you,” Apoc. 1:8; 3:14, seem to be the Greek meaning. 
This would also seem to be the meaning of Heb. 1:10, and possibly of 
II Pet. 3:4. The Hermetic Literature is familiar with this usage; for 
instance, x. 14; “From one Arche all things come, but the Arche comes 
from the One and Only (God),” etc. Justin (I Apol. 28. 3; 55. 6) and 
Tatian (Oral, ad Gr. 5. 1-2) speak of God creating “the Arche,” “the 
Beginning.” Justin (I Apol. 67. 7) says God created the cosmos on the 
first day of the week. But in Dial. 61 he says, more in accord with K.P.: 

God, (in?) the Beginning, before all creatures, begot of Himself a certain 
Logical Power, which is called the Holy Spirit, the Glory of the Lord, the 
Son, Wisdom, Angel, the God, the Lord, the Logos, and on one occasion (when 
he appeared in human form to Josue the son of Nun) calls himself “Captain.” 
. ... He was begotten of the Father, by an act of His Will .... just as 
we, when we utter a word, beget the word. 2 

These attributes of God are met with wherever is found belief in a 
personal God, but there is something unique in the evenness of balance 
with which the Creator and creature are contrasted in the K.P. The 
passage is strikingly similar in expression to Wisdom, 9:1-3; 10:1; 
13:1-2; Sibyl, Frags. I, 7-9; II, 1-3; III, n-16; the Secrets of Enoch 
(48:5); “From the invisible He made all things visible, Himself being 
invisible” (cf. Heb. 11:3); Rom. 1:20; Jo. 1:18: “God no one ever 
has seen”; (Acts 17:24!.); the Book of Jubilees (12:2); Aristides 
Apology (1. 3 f.): 

Ilium vero qui mundum moveat dico Deum omnium rerum esse, qui 

propter hominem omnia fecit.Dico tamen Deum ingenitum, increatum 

esse, ab nullo comprehensum esse sed ipsum omnia comprehendere, autogenes 

eidos, sine initio et sine fine (immutabilem), immortalem, absolutum, qui 

# 

1 For the use of this word in Gk. Philos, as the active principle of creation, see in 
Aristotles* Physics f. 9, p. 326. 

2 The Shepherd, Mand. 1. 1. Similar allusions to believe in one God are found in 
Ign. Mgn. viii. 2; Alterc, Sim. et Theoph I, 4, 6; Jas. et Papisc; Iren. Adv. haer. 
ii. 1. 2: II Clem. ii. 1 2; xvi. 2. 10; Theoph. Ad Antol. i. 3. 



THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


21 


comprehendi non possit. Quod vero absolutum eum dico significat defectum 
in eo non esse, et ei nihil opus esse, sed omnia eo egere. Et quod eum sine 
initio esse dico significat omnia quae initium habeant finem quoque habere, 

et quod finem habeat dissolubile esse.Coelum eum non continet, sed 

coelum et omnia visibilia et invisibilia in eo continentur.Immobilis is 

est, infinitus et ineffabiiis, non est enim locus unde et quo moveri possit, 
neque quasi mensurabilis ab ullo latere definitur neque circuitur, ille enim 
est qui omnia complet et omnia visibilia et invisibilia transcendit. 

Similarly 13. 8, and the Letter to Diagnetus 7. 2; Justin (Apol. 10. 1; 
14. 1-2; 67. 7, 64. 2-5) compares God’s creation of the world by his 
Logos to the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus and {Dial. 127. 2): 
“The ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes nor goes, nor sits 
down, nor stands up, but, in some way, remains in His place, immovable, 
though He sharply sees and keenly hears everything, and observes all 
things”; and he goes on to say that the one who walked with Adam in 
Paradise, shut Noe in the ark, appeared to Abraham, and spoke to 
Moses, was not God the Father but the Son, the Angel, who became man 
of the Virgin; no man has ever seen God the Father. Tatian {Orat. 
ad Gr. 5. 1-2; 7. 1-2; 18. 2) says God created all things in the beginning 
by the power of his Logos, and (4) mentions divine attributes similar 
to those in K.P. Athenagoras {Suppl. 10. 1-2) says, defending Christians 
against the charge of atheism: “We are not atheists, seeing that we 
acknowledge one God uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incom¬ 
prehensible, illimitable .... also a Son of God”; and goes on, at this 
suggestion, to remark: “Nor let anyone think it ridiculous that God 
should have a son; for, though the poets in their fictions represent the 
gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the same as 

theirs.The Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and 

in operation.” 

Frag. III. The difficulties in the reading of this fragment will be 
considered later on. The translation given above is as close as 
possible to the reading as it stands in Clement. Many of the alterations 
which have been suggested by commutators are not needed and often 
are not warranted. 

This diatribe against idol and animal worship was such a common¬ 
place in both Greek and Jewish literature that it is difficult to detect 
resemblances close enough to warrant conclusion as to relation. 
Plutarch, for instance, in Is. et Osir. (cc. 66, 67, 71, 73, 76, 77) dwells 
upon the folly of such worship, while calling the attention of the Greeks, 
who ridicule the Egyptian worship of animals, to the fact that animals 





22 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


are quite as appropriate images of God as are lifeless idols; animals 
ought not to be worshiped by man, for they are his inferiors; and yet 
they are superior to idols, inasmuch as they are living things. He would 
tolerate worship of both, if it helps to avoid atheism, and does not lead 
to superstition. See also his whole treatise on superstitions. Horace 
{Sat. i. 8. i ff.) is a good example of the educated pagan’s attitude 
toward idols: 

Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum: 

Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, 

Maluit esse deum. Deus inde ego, furum aviumque 
Maxima formido; nam fures dextra coercet, 

Obscaenoque ruber porrectus ab inguine palus; 

Ast importunas volucres in vertice arundo 
Terret fixa, vetatque novis considere in hortis. 

Juvenal also gives us a sample of what the Romans of his type 
thought of Egyptian animal worship {Sat. xv. i ff.): 

Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens 
Aegyptus portenta colat ? Crocodilon adorat 
Pars haec: ilia pavet saturam serpentibus ibin. 

Effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci, 

Dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnonechordae, 

Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis. 

Illic caeruleos, hie piscem fluminis, illic 
Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. 

Porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu. 

O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
Numina! Lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis 
Mensa, nefas illic fetum jugulare capellae: 

Carnibus humanis vesci licet. 

Similarly Josephus (c. Apion. i. 28): “King Amenophis desired to 
see the gods ? What gods, I pray, did he desire to see ? If he meant 
the gods whom their laws ordained to be worshiped, the ox, the goat, 
the crocodile, and the baboon, he saw them already.” The Epistle of 
Jeremy says idols are dumb (8), cannot keep themselves from rust and 
moth (12); the dust clings to their face till someone wipes it off (14); 
they are of no more use than a broken vessel (17); they have to be 
guarded, lest they be stolen out of the temple (18); they are bought 
for a price (25); have to be carried about, and if they fall they cannot 
get up (27); they are defiled by impure touch (29); they cannot show 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


23 


mercy to the widow nor do good to the orphan (38); beasts are better, 
for they can get under shelter and help themselves (69). The Letter of 
Aristeas 1 says: “All other men besides us [Jews] think there are many 
gods .... which they adore foolishly, making idols out of stone and 
wood, saying that these images can afford them something helpful 

f° r life.” Tobit (14:8) alludes to gentile idols; Baruch (6:38 f.) 

speaks of the Babylonian gods of wood and stone, of gold and silver, 
and says that they who worship them shall be confounded, and bewails 
their pitiable folly. Ezekiel (21:21) sarcastically alludes to the 
Babylonian King “seeking divination, shuffling arrows, inquiring of 
idols, and consulting entrails.” Daniel (3) tells of the great statue of 
gold and (14) of Bel and the dragon. It is also on account of their 
idolatry that IV Esdras (13:49) says the Gentiles have no hope of 
salvation, and the Secrets of Enoch (c. 99) damns everything Greek 
and compares the Septuagint to the golden calf. In the Book of Jubilees 
(12:1-5) Abraham exhorts Terah not to worship idols: 

What help or profit have you from those idols you worship and before 
which you bow? There is no spirit in them. They are dumb forms, and 
mislead the heart. Worship them not. Worship the God of heaven Who 
causes the rain and the dew to descend on the earth, and does everything upon 
the earth, and has created everything by His Word, and all life is from before 
His face. Why do you worship things that have no spirit in them ? for they 
are the work of men’s hands, and on your shoulders do you bear them, and 
you have no help from them, but they are a great cause of shame to those who 
make them, and a misleading of the heart to those who worship them. 

Wisdom abounds in polemic against idolatry (13:1-2; 13:10-11; 13:16- 
19; 14:1-4; 14:8; 14:11; 14:15-2°, 23 - 2 9 ; i 5 : 5 ; i 5 : 7 - 9 ; J 5 :I 7 _I 9 )> 
pointing out the folly of worshiping man-made images of wood and stone, 
gold and silver, which are worthless and helpless. The reference 
(14:15-16) to the image an afflicted father erected to his son who had 
been suddenly taken away, which began to be worshiped as a god, 
and this worship commanded by tyrants, was instanced in the case of 
Antonius referred to by Justin (Apol. 29. 4), Tatian (Orat. ad Gr. 10. 1) 9 
and Athenagoras (, Suppl . 30. 2). Emperor worship seems to be meant 
by Wisdom 14:17 ff. The Sibyl (III, 545-62) pleads: “Greece, . . . . 
why do you offer sacrifice to gods that are dead?” Frag. Ill, 7 ff., 
has much in common with K.P. Philo pleads with men of reason not 
to dishonor God by thinking dead images and irrational animals or 


1 Aristeas Ep. 134, 137. 



24 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


even the elements and the celestial bodies are like him {De ebietat. 28). 
The theme of his treatise on the Therapeutae, or On the Contemplative 
Life, seems to be the contrast of worship of God in spirit with worship 
of idols in drunkenness. We have the trite repetition of the folly 
of worshiping idols of wood and stone and silver and gold, and animals 
without reason. Similarly in his De legatione ad Caium he deplores 
the foolishness of idolatry and pleads for the Jews who worship God. 

Rom. 1:21 ff. refers to those who in their foolishness have changed 
the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man 
and of fowls and quadrupeds and creeping things, and have worshiped 
the creature rather than the Creator, and I Cor. 10:7 warns against 
idolatry. In Acts 17:29, Paul says to the Athenians, “We should not 
think what is divine to be like what is made of gold, or silver, or stone, 
the work of art and of human skill.” And he tells the Ephesians (Acts 
19:26) that their idols are not gods. Aristides (. Apol . 3. 3; 7. 4; 12. 6) 
contends that images are but the lifeless work of man, and (12:7) 
mentions those (the Egyptians) who worship the sheep, goat, calf, 
pig, ape: 

et alii alausam; et nonnulli corcodilum et ancipitrem et piscem et miluum 
et vulturem et aquilam et corvum. Alii felem adorant, et alii piscem Sib- 
butam, alii canem kai ton lykon kai ton pithekon, alii anguem et alii aspidem 
et alii leonem et alii allium et caepas et spinas, et alii pantheram et cetera. 
. . . . Et Aegyptii ergo non intellexerunt eos qui his similes sint deos non esse, 
quibus non sit potestas sui conservandi. Et si infirmiores sunt quam ut se 
servent, quod ad cultores suos servandos pertinet, unde potestas eos adiuvandi 
erit ? 

Justin {Apol. 9 and 24) speaks of idol and animal worship among the 
Greeks (?) in much the same way as the K.P. Tatian ( Orat . ad Gr. 
4. 2) mentions “gods of wood and stone,” and (9. 1) “things creeping 
on the earth and swimming in the water, and fourfooted things on the 
mountains” receiving divine honor. Athenagoras {Suppi. 4) says 
“the Christians are not atheists like that Diagoras who chopped up a 
wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips. He believed in no god 
at all.” He mentions (1. 1-2), again, “the Egyptians thinking cats 
and crocodiles, serpents and asps and dogs to be gods,” and (14. 2) 
says it is laughable the way “ the Egyptians set up these gods in their 
temples with pomp and ceremony and incense them; and think beasts 
are gods, and bury them in temples when they die.” He uses almost 
the words of K.P. (15. 1): “We do not worship stones and wood and 
gold and silver, thinking them gods.” The Letter to Diagnetus appar- 


THE PREACHING’S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


25 


ently uses the K.P. in its polemic against idols (ii. 2-3; iv. 2-3). 

Origen (c. Cels. iii. 19) alludes to Egyptian animal worship. 

That God gave man all these things for his use is stated frequently 
in the Old and New Testaments. Clement of Alexandria (cohort, c. 8, 9) 
mentions this in his polemic against idolatry. Porphyrius says it was 
the opinion of Chrysippus that Zeus gave to men animals for their use 
and for sacrifice to the gods, especially swine ( De abst. iii. 20; Arium, 

S.V.F., II, n. 1152). Heb. 2:7 ff., quoting Ps. 8:7 and K. 15:27, y/. /fe , 
similarly represents man’s dominion over creatures, which God subjected 
to him. I he Shepherd of Her mas ( Mand . xii. 4. 2) has nearly the same 
words as K.P. in this passage. 

That sins committed in ignorance are pardonable is also stated 
in Ps. 24:7; Acts 3:17; Just. Apol. 12. 11; Shepherd , Mand. iv. 1. 5. 

“The perfect knowledge,” which is contrasted with ignorance and 
imperfect knowledge, is not necessarily (as Dobschuetz thinks, p. 20) 
the addition of Clement. Similar expressions are found in Rom. 2:20; 

I Cor. 2:6, 8:1; 12:8; 13:11 ff.; 14:20; I Pet. 3:7; cf. II Cor. 3:14; 

8:7; 11:16; Eph. 3:19; I Tim. 6:20; Col. 2:2; cf. Justin, Appendix, 

8. 3; Tatian, Orat. ad Gr. 12. 4. 

Frag. IV. The Jewish manner of worship is repudiated in this 
fragment with uncompromising completeness. It is difficult to find 
anything else exactly like this, except in some later apologists, apparently 
copying the K.P. Paul had not repudiated Jewish angelology, nor did 
he object to the Jews observing their own law. Even Justin {Dial. 47) 
allowed, “out of consideration for weak-mindedness,” the Jewish 
Christians to observe their law, provided they did not try to force its 
observance on gentile Christians. The evangelists, too, are quite in 
sympathy with Jewish angelology, especially Matthew, who is else 
more hostile to the Jews than the others. What we have in K.P. is 
really the genuine Greek philosopher’s ridicule of Jewish worship of 
angels and month and moon and observance of days. Jewish apologists 
commonly contend that the accusation of angel worship brought against 
“the Jews” was due to confounding “Jews” with “Ophites,” and 
appeal to the Talmud (Mek. Yithro X) where R. Ismael says: “He 
who slaughters an animal in the name of Michael, the great captain of 
the heavenly hosts, renders the same an offering to dead idols” (cf. 

Hul. 40 a; Ab. Zarah 42 b). “Four keys are in the keeping of God 
exclusively and not in that of the angels: the keys of rain, of nourish¬ 
ment, of birth, and of resurrection.” Targ. Yer. to Gen. 30:22 excludes 
prayer of petition for certain things to angels (cf. Jewish Encycl., I, 595). 


26 


TEE PREACHING OF PETER 


The fact that Jewish authorities found it necessary to forbid or restrain 
angel worship is worthy of note, and it should be observed that the 
restraint is not a total prohibition. Sacrifice to angels being eliminated, 
there may yet remain more than one-half of i per cent of angel worship. 
Josephus {Bel. Jud. ii. 8. 7) attributes a special gift of interpreting angel 
names to the Essenes. 

Mention has already been made, in speaking of the Jewish “Law” 
and of “One God,” of what pagans thought of the Jews in this regard. 
Not all the heathen admired the Law of Moses or tried to observe the 
Sabbath. Possibly the more common attitude of the educated Greeks 
and Romans was that which regarded the Sabbath observance as sheer 
nonsense and laziness, as did Juvenal {Sat. xiv. 105 f.): 

Sed pater in causa, cui septima quaeque fuit lux 

Ignava, et partem vitae not attigit ullam. 

Apparently sensible pagans, like sensible Jews and Christians, objected 
only to an exaggerated scrupulousness of exerting one’s self on the 
Sabbath. Bacon 1 remarks on Mk. 2:27, “Sabbath is made for man and 
not man for the Sabbath, ” that “ the proverb (quoted also in the Talmud) 
which gives a constructive ground for proper disregard of the Sabbath is 
unauthentic. It fails to appear in either synoptic parallel and is wanting 
in the B text.” Bacon might have passed a more lenient judgment 
upon this passage had he used the same criterion he did on the next 
page in discussing Matthew’s and Luke’s treatment of Mk. 10:9. Mark 
portrays Jesus’ attitude toward the Sabbath consistently in 3:1-6. 
It is worthy of note that the Christian evangelists and apologists detect 
the attitude of their readers toward the Sabbath, to which they success¬ 
fully appeal. The Book of Jubilees (1:14), “They will go astray as to 
new moons and Sabbaths and festivals and jubilees and ordinances,” 
is similar in tone to the K.P., and would seem to be a protest against 
exaggerated formality as well as indifference. Ill Esdras (7:14) 
describes a celebration of Azymes, “eating for seven days before the 
Lord,” but it may only mean to emphasize the grandeur of the feast, 
as it does the Passover celebration (1:1). 

There is a contrast between the words (IV) ginoskein and epistantai 
which cannot be adequately expressed in English. The former here 
seems to mean that the Jews rest quietly content in the notion that they 
are God’s people, but have not personally investigated the reasons 
for such belief, in the way Greek philosophers said life was too short to 

1 B. W. Bacon, Is Mark a Roman Gospel? (1919), p. 70, n. 3. 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


27 


make sure about the gods, and it was advisable to take religion as we 
find it, avoiding atheism on the one hand and superstition on the other. 
“The Jews” are designated in much the same way as in the Fourth 
Gospel (3:21-24; 7:15 ff.; 8:17, where “your law” is spoken of as if 
Jesus were not a Jew; cf. 10:34 and contrast “ethnos” in 11:51). 
Apoc. 2:9 may refer to the Roman, or Catholic, Christians, to whom 
Hebrews was written, and who produced the irenic literature of Domi- 
tian’s reign (cf. 3:9). It is not surprising that the visionary John of 
Ephesus should discountenance such an attitude toward “Babylon” 
(17:5; 18:2) as was taken by the Roman Catholic church, or the 
Christian communities from which emanated I Peter. These Petrine 
writings will be compared below. 

Philo says a great deal about angels and archangels, but nowhere 
says they are worshiped. Still his emphatic insistence on the worship 
of one God is significant, and he would seem to give the Therapeutae 
(or Essenes) credit for a monotheism of more than common purity. 
Doubtless it was Chaldean influence that was filling the heavens of that 
time with angelic hosts. Philo thought the belief was too common 
to oppose, and perhaps beneficial, as a wholesome return to spirituality 
after the bleak winter of Epicurean materialism. (Compare the revival 
of belief in ghosts in our own time.) Would Philo’s silence indicate a 
diversity of practice and creed among the Jews? Anyhow, there was 
not a great deal of real difference between the astrological gnosticism of 
the Alexandrine writers and the Chaldean angelology of Palestinian 
apocalyptic and rabbinical literature. The part angels were said to 
play in the physical, the moral, and the religious world is quite well 
depicted in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Reuben 2:7; 
Levi 2:34 ff.), where the “heavens” and “their angels” are described. 
In the highest heaven is God (34); in the next the archangels (35); 
then the angels (37); after that the thrones and dominations (38) 
(cf. Rom. 8:38; Col. 1:16; Eph. 1:21). Perhaps such are the “Judaic 
myths, foolish questions, and genealogies” and “the religion of angels” 
mentioned in Titus 1:14; 3:9 and Col. 2:18. The attitude of Hebrews 
toward the angels is more favorable (1:4, 6, 7, 13, 14; 2:2, 5, 7, 9, 12; 
12:22; 13:2), and the Apocalypse of John is thoroughly Jewish in this 
regard (3:5; 4:4, etc.). The Gospels quite well accord in their attitude 
toward angels. Mark is too much concerned with demonology to accuse 
the Jews of worshiping angels, of whom he speaks reverently (8:38; 
13:32), but sometimes speaks of “a young man” (16:5, neaniscan ), 
as does the Gospel of Peter (10:39), where others talk of angels. Matthew 


28 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


makes much of them (1:20; 2:13; 2:19; 22:30; 24:36; 25:31; 28:2; 
18:10, where, it is interesting to observe, he uses the same language as 
Philo, De opif. mundi 69, in speaking of the highest of the angels, with 
bodies of purest “hyle, ” who are ever with God, and “ behold the face 
of the Father.” The word prosopon , “person, ” later became prominent 
in the trinitarian controversy). Luke frequently introduces angels 
(1:11 ff., 36 ff.; 2:13#.; 4:10, 7:27 ff ; 12:8; 15:10; 11:22; 20:36; 
22:43; Acts 5:19; 6:15; 7:53; 8:26; 10:3; 12:7 ff.). John has not 
so much to say about them (5:4; 19:12). Aristides (Apol. 14. 4) is 
quite plainly using the K.P.: “(Judaei) quoque a scientia exacta aber- 
raverunt et se Deo servire in mente arbitrantur, nationibus vero operum 
eorum cultus angelorum et non Dei est.” The other apologists have 
nothing to say about the Jews worshiping angels, except Origen in answer 
to the accusation brought by Celsus (i. 26; v. 6-34), in about the same 
way as the K.P. and Aristides. Athenagoras rather turns the accusation 
against the Greeks, and says their heroes are but fallen angels ( Suppl . 
24 f.), and that these heroes were later made to be gods, and the idols 
and mysteries of Greece and Egypt were invented in their honor (27 f.). 
Philo has a similar view, expressed in many places. It has already 
been mentioned that Justin says “the angel” of the Old Testament 
was Jesus, whom he also calls (Apol. 12. 9; 63. 14, etc., cf. Heb. 3:1) 
“our Angel and Apostle.” 

The Sabbath and other feasts mentioned here occur frequently 
in Jewish and early Christian literature Philo (De septen. 1. 2, Bent- 
wich, p. 121) enumerates ten feasts observed by the Alexandrine Jews: 
(1) every day, if used aright; (2) the Sabbath; (3) New Moon; (4) 
Passover; (5) First Fruit (Omer); (6) Unleavened Bread; (7) Pentecost; 
(8) New Year; (9) Atonement, the Great Day; (10) Tabernacles. 
Aristides (Apol. 14. 4), continuing the passage quoted above, says: 
“ (Judaei) cum sabbata custodiant et neomenias et azyma 1 et ieiunium 
(diem) magnum et ieunium et circumcisionem et escarum munditian, 
quae ne ita quidem perfecte custodierunt.” The Letter to Diagnetus 
(4. 1) speaks of the Jews’ Sabbath superstition and circumcision and 
the fast and new moon. The striking agreement and discrepancy 

1 Cf. Zahn, G.N.T.K. , II, 2, p. 823, and Theol. Literatur Z. (1892), p. 38. Mk. 
14:1; I Cor. 5:7 (Peschitto). Hilgenfeld would read hemeran for nestdan, making 
Aristides 14. 4 agree with K.P. IV, but cf. Justin Apol. 37. 5 and Ep. ad Diag. iv. 1: 
and Ev. Pet. 11:5; 14:58 (cf. Dobschuetz, p. 37, n. 2; Schiirer, I, 239, A 22). Azyma 
here would seem to mean the entire Paschal week, Nisan 14-21 (cf. Acts 20:6); 
Heorten is probably “Pentecost,” and Megalen hemeran “the Great Day of Atone¬ 
ment.” Note a similar confusion in Mk. 14:1; Mt. 26:2; L. 22:1. 


THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


29 


between the K.P. and Aristides and the Diagnetus letter might be due 
to independent use of the K.P. by all three writers, Clement, Aristides, 
and the writer to Diagnetus. Both Aristides and the Diagnetus writer 
mention fasting, which does not occur in the Clementine K.P. fragment, 
though, as will be seen in chapter iv, there are extant probable fragments 
of the K.P. which make such mention. C. Schmidt’s remark on a 
similar passage in the Gespraeche Jesu would agree with this hypothesis. 1 

The expression “Sabbath which is called First” apparently means 
“the Great Sabbath” (cf. Jo. 19:31; and Mart. Polyc. 8. 1), the Sabbath 
after the Pasch. See Dobschuetz’ comment on this passage (p. 43). 
It can hardly mean “the first day of the week” (cf. Mk. 16:2, 9; Mt. 
28:1, Acts 20:7, I Cor. 16:2) for, so far as is known, the first day of the 
week was not a Jewish feast, though it has been observed by Christians 
from the first century as “the Lord’s day.” The Epistle of Barnabas 
(XVI) treats of the transition from the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian, 
mentioning these Jewish feasts of New Moon and Sabbath, and with 
his characteristic allegory maintaining that Christians have begun a 
new week, or the eighth day. 

Frag. V. How soon it became evident that Christians were “a new 
race ” is not easy to determine. It would seem that even before Christ 
some Jews had begun to realize, as Trypho was forced to acknowledge in 
his (perhaps fictitious) dialogue with Justin (chap. 47), that it was 
practically impossible to observe the Mosaic Law as it was interpreted 
by the Pharisees, and hence sought some reasonable substitute. The 
Alexandrine Jews apparently found such a substitute in the allegorical 
spiritualization of Judaism, and there were doubtless several such 
religious movements as are represented by the Essenes and Therapeutae. 
John the Baptist, of whom we regrettably know so little, was apparently 
a leader of such a movement, and men like Apollo (I Cor. 1:12; Acts 
18:24) were perhaps active “apostles” of the “new” movement before 
Christian evangelists appeared on the scene. What is said (Acts, 
chap. 18) about “Aquila, a certain Jew of Pontus, and Priscilla, his 
wife,” expelled from Rome by Claudius, meeting Paul at Corinth and 
working with Apollo at Ephesus, is interesting. The strange confusion 
of the name Simon and the reference to Kephas (I Cor. 1:12, etc.) have 
never been satisfactorily explained. There is also something in the 
difficulty experienced in determining whether such literature as the 
Apocalypse and the Didache are Christian or Jewish. We are not 
certain about the Sibyl III and IV, and there is even reason to doubt 

1 C. Schmidt, op. cit., p. 583. 


30 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


about Philo and Josephus. Nor is the difficulty limited to distinction 
between Jews and Christians. It is an amusing phenomenon, often 
repeated, that leading archaeologists contend for the same inscription 
or monument, respectively claiming it to be Jewish, Christian, Mithraic, 
Hermetic, Apollonian, etc. The Marcus Aurelius column, the Aberkios 
inscription, the Hermas Good Shepherd , the Mithra caenacula are 
instances. Nor is this contention anything modern. Justin claimed 
(Append, io. i) that whatever was said that was true is ours, and says 
(Append. 13) he is a Christian “not because the teachings of Plato are 
different from those of Christianity, but because they are not in all 
respects the same.” He accused the Mithra mystics of imitating 
Christians ( Apol . 66. 4), and the pagans generally of borrowing from 
Christianity. It was considered honorable to be of ancient descent. 
A “novus homo” was at least to be suspected. The claim to be “new” 
was a new claim indeed. The K.P. not only claimed for Christianity 
the reality of the new covenant promised by the prophets (Jer. 31:31; 
cf. 11:19); it proclaimed the Christians “a new, a third race,” and 
declared the dispensation of the Jews and Greeks “antiquated.” 

The pagans recognized the novelty of Christianity (Tacitus Ann. 
15. 44; Suetonius Vita Nero 16), and it was a recommendation, for the 
old order of things was no longer desired by many. “Philosophy 
declared,” says Zeller, 1 “that all men are of one blood and equally 
privileged citizens of one empire, that morality rests on the relation of 
man to man, and is independent of nationality and position in the state; 
but in so doing it only explicitly stated a truth which was partly realized 
and partly implied in actual life.” Various attempts were being made 
to realize the philosopher’s and the poet’s dream, which often proved 
but vain experiments or, like that which Ploteinos was planning when 
he died, never materialized. The “Golden Age” was longed for, hoped 
for, believed to be obtainable in a future life, and the first generation 
of Christians ardently shared that hope and faith. But as the old 
generation died off, and the new grew up, this-worldly views began to 
take form. The millennial hope, an outgrowth of Jewish apocalyptic 
and heathen mysticism, looked for at least “a thousand years” of fabu¬ 
lous happiness here on earth. Others held to the older belief in an 
other-worldly kingdom, but set it at a greater, even an indefinite, 
distance, and began soberly to attend to the affairs of the present 
life. This attitude is manifest in the Catholic literature of the late 
first century, and seems to be that of the K.P. Already discernible 
is the conservatism and retrospection of authority basing its claim 

1 Zeller, The Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, chap. ii. 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


31 


upon the past—the Roman “titulus prescriptions.” “What you 
have learned,” “what we have given,” as tradition, keep faithfully— 
is the tone of the Preaching of Peter. The very name is note¬ 
worthy. Then there is appeal to Scripture. But it is the gentile 
view of Scripture, the common property of all men not as the exclu¬ 
sive possession of the Jews, for the Jews are a thing of the past; 
and indeed, were never really more the object of God’s providence 
than were the Greeks. Some of the Jews themselves, at least of 
the Hellenistic world, had begun to recognize this. The Sibyl (V, 
247 f.) speaks of the “divine race of blessed Jews.” Philo’s Therapeutae 
are nothing else, says Friedlaender {Gesch. der jued. Apol ., p. 263), 
than the “geistige Elite des Diaspora-Judenthums, ” and Philo (De 
Abrah. ii. 15) says “they are the beloved of God of all nations, a 
race that has obtained the priesthood and the prophetic office for the 
whole race of men” (cf. I Pet. 2:9). “This especially is desired,” 
says Philo {De human, ii. 395) in refutation of the charge of misanthropy 
brought against the Jews, “ throughout the law by the most holy Prophet, 
to prepare equality, community, concord among all nations, by which 
things states and cities, peoples and countries, and the whole human 
race, may rise to the highest benevolence. This has ever been my 
prayer, and I believe it will yet come about.” This hope of Philo’s is 
what the K.P. claims is realized in Christianity. Dobschuetz (p. 45) 
says the terminology is Pauline. It seems rather commonplace. The 
thought is quite an advance over Paul’s. Compare Rom. 1:14-17; 
3:21 f.; 7:6; 9:24 f.; 10:4,12; 11:1,17; 15:9 fT.; I Cor. 7:29; Gal. 
3:9, 22, 28 f.; Col. 2:10-11. Paul is still thinking in terms of “Jew 
and Gentile.” Even though he conceives a union of the two, it is the 
adoption of the Gentile into the Jewish inheritance, the grafting of the 
“wild olive” on to the old trunk. Paul’s is the Apocalypse vision of the 
vast multitude of races gathered with the hundred and forty-four thou¬ 
sand of Israel into a new Jerusalem which is built upon the twelve tribes 
(Apoc. 4:1-10; 17:2; 21:10-15; 22:15). He speaks glowingly indeed 
of “the new creation” (II Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15), but it is “service in 
newness of spirit, not in antiqueness of letter.” It is not the “Third 
Race” of the K.P., nor hardly the “elect race, the royal priesthood, the 
holy nation, a people of purchase,” of I Peter (2:9). Paul can never 
grant that “Israel is cast off.” He cannot say, “If the old had been 
blameless, a new would not have been sought .... that the former 
has grown old, is antiquated, is soon to disappear” (Heb. 8:8-13), and 
that therefore we have “a New Covenant.” 


32 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


The Gospels, especially the Fourth, and Acts, contain traces of the 
old view of two races, the gentile Christians being little better than 
Jewish proselytes, together with the “new” (Mk. 1:27; 13:9-11; 

Mt. 5:17; 21:28-32; Acts 11:26; Jo. 4:21-27; 8:17; 10:34; 11:50, 
where “ethne” would seem from the context to mean the Jewish nation). 
The Epistle of Barnabas (5:7) speaks of “the new people”; Aristides 
(.Apol. 2. 1; Syr. 2. 9), doubtless originally agreed with the K.P., dividing 
the world into “ three races, ” heathen, Jews, and Christians (cf. Geffcken, 
Zwei gr. Ap., notes on these passages, and Einl. xii-xxxii; also in 
Preussische Jahrbuecher [1903], pp. 225 id.), and calls them {Apol. 16. 4), 
“gens vero nova et mixtio divina”; and (17. 5) “benedicta vero est 
gens Christianorum.” The Letter to Diagnetus (1) mentions “this 
new race,” and (5-6) draws a fascinating picture of Christian life, 
“what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.” Justin 
{Dial. 43.1; 85.2; 106. 1; 117. 4; 118.3; 122.5; 123. 1; Apol. 14. 1; 
32.5; 44.8; 46.3; 53.3; 54.3; 59.1; 61.9; Append. 10. 8) contrasts 
the “old” with the “new” dispensation, and declares that Christianity 
is really nothing new, but that whatever is said well by all peoples is 
Christian (Append. 13. 4; Dial. 63. 5; 105. 1; 116. 1: 118. 2; 126-29). 
Athenagoras {Suppl. 32 et passim) speaks of Christians in much the same 
way as the Letter to Diagnetus. 

Frags. VI and VIII. These two fragments agree in promising forgive¬ 
ness of sins to the repentant. In Frag. VI the promise is addressed to 
the Jews, in Frag. VIII to “all rational souls,” probably including 
“the spirits in prison,” as has already been mentioned, and will be 
discussed more fully below (cf. I Pet. 3:19; Ev. Pet. [X] 41). 
Dobschuetz’ comment (p. 24): “Die Beziehung auf das Kerygma im 
Hades ist wohl von Clem. Al. an das Citat herangetragen, ” is utterly 
unwarranted. The conditions for obtaining forgiveness of sins are the 
same for Jew and Greek, faith and repentance. It is noteworthy that 
no mention is made of baptism, and the completely developed expression 
of the Trinity, found in Mt. 28:19, 1S as yet apparently unthought of. 
Faith and repentance are free acts, “ if anyone will,” only he is responsible 
for his choice; the part of the apostle is to preach, so that none may have 
excuse to say, “We did not hear”; having heard, it rests with him 
freely to choose to believe and repent or not, and the consequence is, 
accordingly, salvation or damnation. 

Forgiveness of sin upon repentance is spoken of in the Prayer of 
Manasses, Wisdom of Solomon (11:24; 12:10-20; 15:2); Jesu Sirach 
(3:4); the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Issachar, 7:1, where it 


THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


33 


is interesting to note the “negative confession”; compare Arist. Apol. 
I 7 * 4 ); Mark (1:15 f.; 2:5, 7; 6:12); Matthew (9:2; 9:13; 11:20; 
12:1 f.; 18:11-13; 21:31-32; 28:18-20); Luke (5:20, 32, 7:47f.; 
I 3 : 35 T 5 : 7 i I 7 : 3 '> 2 4 : 47 f*); Acts (1:4; 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 7:30; 
11 : 18; i 7 : 3 °; 26:20); John (9:27; 20:23); Apocalypse (2:5, 21; 
3 : 3)? I Peter (1:21); Hebrews (6:1). The Epistle of Barnabas (5:9; 
8:3 and 7; 11:1) is very like the K.P. So also is the Shepherd of Hernias 
(Mand . iv. 1. 5; Sim. v. 7. 3; ix. 17. 1-2). The Acts of John (Zahn, 
pp. 241 f.), of Ihomas (38:55 P)> Altercatio Simonis Judae et Theophili 
Christiani (viii. 36) bear striking resemblance to K.P. Aristides (Apol. 
17. 3-4, Syr., cf. Rob., p. 89): 

Qua de causa, cum errorem illorum intelligant et ab illis verberentur, 
tolerant et patiuntur, et illorum valde miserantur quasi hominum qui scientiae 
inopes sunt et pro illis supplicationes offerunt ut ab errore convertant. Et 
cum accidit ut aliquis illorum converterit, coram Christianis eum pudet 
gestorum quae ab eo facta sunt, et Deum laudat, dicens Per ignorantiam haec 
feci. Et purgat cor suum et peccata eius ei dimittuntur, quod per ignorantium 
tempore priore ea fecit. 

Compare Justin (Apol. 15. 7-8; 28. 2; 40. 7; 52. 9; 61. 6-12, where 
he speaks in language similar to K.P., adding, “Thus far we have been 
taught by the Apostles”; no mention of baptism). 

There seems to be a lacuna in VI. Probably the original reading was 
something like Acts 1:4, instructing the apostles to remain in Jerusalem 
twelve years, preaching the gospel of faith and repentance to the Twelve 
Tribes of Israel: and then continuing, “and after twelve years, go out 
into the world.” The tradition of this twelve years of waiting is men¬ 
tioned by Eusebius, quoting Apollonius, Acts of Peter (c. Sim. c. 5) and 
frequently in second-century literature, especially that emanating from 
the “Petrine Tradition,” of which more will be said below. The tradi¬ 
tion doubtless grew out of the Christians’ attempt to answer the question 
put to them by the Jews of the Dispersion, “If the Gospel is for Jews, 
why is it preached to Gentiles?” as well as the question put by the 
Gentiles, “Why did the Jews reject the Gospel?” While it is not 
necessary to conclude that the porosis , or hardening of heart, was 
connected from the beginning with the tradition of the twelve years’ 
wait in Jerusalem, there is good reason to think it was. See Bacon 
(Is Mark a Roman Gospel? pp. 72 f.), citing Mk. 4:13, 40; 6:52; 7:18; 
8:16-19; 9:18-19, 28, 32; 10:13-14 and 24, 26, 32; 14:50. This 

agrees very well with Paul’s attitude toward the Jews who rejected his 
gospel, even though he did not believe “God had cast off His people” 


34 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


(Rom. 10:20 f.; Acts 28:25 f.). “The veil is over their heart” (II 
Cor. 3:15), he says, but he hopes it will be lifted. Carl Schmidt {op. 
cit., p. 79) says of this passage: 

Dieses Gebot stand nach der Angabe des Clemens Al. Strom, vi. 5. 43, als 
ein authentisches Herrenwort in dem Kerygma Petri, und es kann nicht 
zweifelhaft sein, dass aus der gleichen Quelle der kleinasiat Apollonius in 
seiner Streitschrift gegen den Montenismus die paradosia von dem zwoelf- 
jaehrigen Aufenthalt der Juenger in Jerusalem nach der Auferstehung des 
0 Herrn geschaepft hat. 

And (p. 192): 

Sehr geschickt hat der Verfasser des Kerygma Petri sich dem Dilemma: 
Weltmission oder Judenmission durch die Annahme entzogen, dass die Urapostel 
sich zwoelf Jahre hindurch auf Geheiss des Herrn auf die Mission der Juden 
beschraenkt und dennach erste ihre Weltmission angetreten haben, eine 
Ansicht, die auch von Tertullian ( De praescr. haeret. c. 20) geteilt wird: 
“apostoli primo per Judaeam contestata fide in Jesum Christum et ecclesiis 
institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti eandem doctrinam eiusdem fidei nationibus 
promulgaverunt. Von der Judenmission hat der Verfasser des Kerygma 
scheinvar keine hohe Meinung gehabt, wenn er den Herrn sagen laesst [follows 
Frag. VI. Cf. pp. 202, 203, n. 4]. 

He renders, Gespraeche Jesu (c. 25, Coptic): “Gehet ihr und prediget 
den zwoelf Staemmen ( phyle ) und prediget auch den Heiden ( ethnos ) ” 
(cf. c. 31, Coptic). See also Dobschuetz (p. 53) and Zahn ( G.N.T.K ., 
II, 2, p. 821, and Act. Joh. Proch., pp. 3 ff.), Pistis Sophia (Dob., p. 153), 
and the Bruce Papyrus, which speak of eleven years’ wait in Jerusalem. 
Various Gnostic and mystic writings speak of the apparitions of the 
risen Savior for months, conversing with his disciples (cf. L. 24:49; 
Acts 1:3; Jo. 20:19-21,25; L. 24:13 ff.; Mk. 16:9 ff.; Mt., chap. 28; 
Ev. Pet. 10:41, etc.). Aristides ( Apol. 15, 2 Syr.) seems to imply a 
certain stay of the apostles in Jerusalem after the Resurrection: “Deinde 
hi duodecim ierunt” (cf. Justin Apol. 53. 3). 

Frag. VII. The word “apostle” in Greek meant a delegate sent with 
proper authority. Christ is called “the apostle of the faith which we 
profess” (Heb. 3:1, cf. Justin Apol. 12. 9; 63. 14). The authorized 
collectors of the annual half-shekel offering for the Temple in Jerusalem 
were called apostles (cf. Jewish Encycl ., art. “Apostle”). In the early 
church preachers were called apostles, to distinguish them from teachers 
and prophets (cf. I Cor. 12:29; Didache 11:3). “Disciple” was the 
common designation of the followers of a teacher (e.g., Mk. 2:18). Paul 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


35 


speaks of “those who were before him Apostles” (Rom. 16:7; Gal. 
1:17) and i^ames certain ones, mentions the apparition of Jesus “to 
all the apostles” (I Cor. 14:7), but he nowhere says there were twelve. 
The Apocalypse is fond of connecting the twelve apostles with the 
Twelve Tribes of Israel (Apoc. 21:14). Mark mentions the call and 
election of “the twelve” (Mk. 3:13-19) and mentions “the twelve” 
in several places (4:10; 6:7; 9:35; 10:32; n:n; 14:20), but does 
not call them “apostles.” Similarly Luke speaks of “the twelve” 
(L. 9:12; 18:31; 22:4), but he inserts in the narrative of the election 
(6:13-16), “whom he called also apostles,” and calls them apostles 
elsewhere (22:14), and promises them twelve thrones (22:30; cf. Mt. 
19:28; Apoc. 3:21). Matthew (10:1-2) says: “Calling together 

the twelve disciples , he gave them power.Now the names of 

the twelve apostles are these.” Elsewhere he speaks of “the twelve 
disciples” (11:1; 20:17), or simply of “the disciples” (16:13; 19:10; 
21:1, 6; 26:36; 28:7, 16). John speaks frequently of “the disciples” 
(2:2, 11, 12; 6:3, 8, 17, 22, 24, 61; 9:2, 9, 28; 13:5, 23, 35), of “the 
twelve” (6:71; 20:24), of “the apostles” (13:16), but seems to exclude 
Judas from the election (13:18). In Acts, chapter 1, “the twelve 
apostles” are firmly constituted the leaders of the Jerusalem community. 
Aristides ( Apol. 15. 2) has “these twelve disciples.” There is some 
discrepancy in the names of the twelve: compare the lists in Mk. 
3:16-19; Mt. 10:2-4; Lk. 6:14-16; Acts 1:13 (and E. Schmidt, 
Gespraeche Jesu , p. 230). “ Faithful apostles” sounds like the Ebionite 

Gospel (Klostermann, Apos., II, Ev., p. 10, n. 26): “Ich waehle je die 
besten mir aus, die mir mein Vater im Himmel gibt” (cf. Mt. 10:37; 
Ign ad Rom. iii. 2). The Sibyl (III, 69 ff.) sings of “the faithful and 
chosen Hebrews .... all everywhere who have listened to the word 
of God.” Apocalypse (2:2) speaks of “some who call themselves 
apostles, and are not such.” The Gospel of Peter (14:59), “We twelve 
Apostles,” etc., will be considered below with the other Petrine writings. 

Mark (16:15 f.), “Go into the whole world,” etc., sounds like the 
K.P. Also Matthew (28:18): “Going into the whole world, preach,” 
etc., and Luke (24:47). The Epistle of Barnabas (5:9-10); Aristides, 
as quoted above (15.2); the Shepherd of Hermas ( Sim. viii. 3.2; ix. 6. 5); 
Justin {Apol. 31. 7; 32. 8-9; 40. 7; 42. 4; 45. 5) says, in nearly the same 
words as the K.P., the apostles went into the whole world and preached. 
Of course, this is such a common item of Christian narrative that even 
identity of language is no certain indication of literary dependence. 
But the recurrence of such expressions manifests that these writers 



3 6 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


had the same material in hand and sometimes the identity is so close 
that one cannot resist the inclination to attribute the sameness to 
copying. 

The “faith” here required for salvation is quite a definite thing 
and seems pretty much the same as the “faith” of Rom. 3:21 f.; 3:28; 
10:9, 17 and Jo. 6:47, etc.: “He that believes in me” (cf. 3:18; 5:24). 
“What is to come to pass” occurs also in several places in Justin (. Apol . 
39. 1; 44. n, etc.). “That they may have no excuse to say, we did not 
hear,” is so exactly repeated in the Acts of Thomas (28) and Theophilus 
ad Antolicum (i. 14) that even Dobschuetz admits: “Hier sind die An- 
klaenge so gehaeuft, dass man vielleicht nicht mit unrecht Abhaengigkeit 
von dem K.P. annehmen duerfte” (p. 57). See also Justin {Apol. 42. 1) 
and Jo. 15:22. The difficult reading in Frag. VII may be explained 
by John (17:3): “That they may know Thee, the only true God,” and 
(17:20): “Who through their word shall believe in me.” 

Frag. IX-X. The appeal to Scripture was common among the 
Jews (cf. the sermons of Peter and Stephen in Acts 1:15 ff.; 2:i4ff.; 
3:12 ff.; 7:2 ff.). And at this time it was just as common among the 
Gentiles. Not only the Sibyl, and poets like Virgil, but even such 
historians as Tacitus and Suetonius take cognizance of the popularly 
supposed fulfilment of prophecy. The care with which the evangelists 
and apologists point out the supernaturalness of the events they narrate, 
their anxiety to prove Jesus the Messiah promised by the Prophets, 
may have been enhanced by the presence of the John the Baptist sect. 
But it also manifests that the Greeks for whom they wrote were not 
unfamiliar with the Septuagint Scriptures. Justin’s Dialogue with the 
Jew is intended primarily for gentile readers. Celsus shows quite as 
great ease in handling Jewish Scriptures as do the Jews and Christians 
themselves. Paul’s assurance that Festus “knew all, both the customs 
and questions among the Jews,” was probably no exaggeration. The 
apologists appeal with similar confidence to the knowledge of the Roman 
rulers. 

From this appeal to Scripture, the appeal to apostolic tradition 
was an easy step. It is even foreshadowed in such expressions of Paul 
as he uses to remind the Corinthians (11:23) that what he had taught 
them about the Eucharist was not his, but traditional teaching. Not 
only Jewish, but gentile converts also, brought with them into the 
Christian community a predisposition to reverence what was taught 
about sacred things, especially the mysteries, by proper authority. 
Apollonius of Tyana, it would seem, though the literature is rather 




THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 37 

late and not entirely trustworthy, claimed to be the fulfilment of 
prophecies made by Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Plato, Virgil, and Horace. 
Paul, in his sermon to the Athenians (Acts 17:22-31), is made to appeal 
to Greek authorities in support of his gospel. Plutarch {On Fate , n. 9) 
professes his belief that “the Supreme and first Providence is the under¬ 
standing or (if you had rather) the will of the first and sovereign, God, 
doing good to everything that is in the world, by which all divine things 
have universally and throughout been most excellently and most wisely 
ordained and disposed.” Consoling his wife on the death of their little 
daughter, he reminds her (n. 11): “In the laws and traditions of our 
ancestors, when children die, no libations nor sacrifices are made for them, 
or any other ceremonies which are wont to be proffered for the dead.” 
It was principally because the Stoics and Epicureans denied Providence, 
or reduce it to mechanical physical law, that men like Cicero, Seneca, 
and Plutarch found fault with them. Virgil’s Aeneid is a poet’s way of 
portraying fulfilled prophecy, as his Fourth Eclogue is the poet’s restate¬ 
ment of prophecy soon to be fulfilled in the dawn of the Golden Age. 

* It is not far, therefore, that we have to go to look for the reason 
why the first Christians appealed to prophecy to prove the divinity of 
their Lord, and his teaching and deeds. It was but natural they should 
put in the mouth of Jesus such appeal to Scripture as Jo. 5:39 and 
L. 4:16-30. Similarly, Gespraeche Jesu (Aeth., c. 31): 

Wie auch ihr aus der Schrift erfahren habt dass eure Vaeter die Propheten, 
von mir gesprochen haben, und an mir ist es wirklich erfuellt worden. Und 
er sagte uns: so werdet auch ihr ihnen zu Wegbuehrern, und alles, was ich 
euch sagte und ihr wegen mir schriebet (erzaehlet ihnen naemlich), dass ich 
das Wort bin des Vaters und der Vater in mir ist. So sollt ihr auch jenem 
Manne sein, wie es euch geziemt. Belehret und erinnert (ihn an das), was in 
der Schrift ueber mich gesprochen und erfuellt worden ist, und er wird nachher 
den Voelkern zum Heil [cf. Strom, vii. 17; Tertul. Praeser. haeret. 32; Schmidt, 
op. cit., p. 192b 

Luke (24:25-26) has nearly the same, where Jesus, appearing to the two 
disciples on the road to Emmaus, chides them for their incredulity and 
“slowness of heart to believe in all the things the Prophets have spoken 
of: how it was fitting that Christ should suffer and thus enter into his 
glory; and beginning with Moses, explained to them in all the Prophets 
and all the Scriptures what concerned him.” I Pet. i:iof. throws 
light upon the difficult reading of Frag. IX: 

Of which salvation the Prophets have inquired and diligently searched, 
who prophesied of the grace to come in you; searching what or what manner 


3 » 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


of time the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when it foretold those sufferings 
that are in Christ and the glories that should follow, to whom it was revealed 
that not to themselves but to you they ministered those things which are now 
declared to you by them that have preached the Gospel to you. 

To quote Carl Schmidt again (p. 251): “Christus ist somahl Objekt 
wie Subjekt der alttestamentlichen Offenbarung. Diese dogmatische 
Theorie der Kirche laesst der Verfasser des K.P. durch die Apostel 
vertreten.” (Follows Frag. IX.) 

The writer of the K.P. represents Peter, in the same attitude as does 
the Acts of the Apostles, “searching the Scriptures.” Perhaps the 
writer himself was such a one as Apollo is depicted to be (Acts 18:24), 
“powerful in the Scriptures.” Even Mark, who, compared with the 
other evangelists, is not overanxious to quote Scripture, begins his Gospel 
with a reference to Isaiah foretelling John the Baptist, and records 
Jesus’ own prophecy of his passion (10:33!.). Matthew’s fondness 
for observing fulfilment of prophecy is notorious. John sometimes 
remarks how the event reminded them that it had been foretold (Jo. 
2:17). The triple division of prophecy into “parables, enigmas, and 
authentic statement” is noteworthy. “Parable” occurs frequently in 
the Gospels. “Enigma” (e.g., Mt. 6:4) is something hidden, hence 
not easy to see (I Cor. 13:12). Parables were sometimes thus obscure 
(4:34; Mt. 13:35). Justin ( Apol . 32:1) says: “Moses, the first of the 
Prophets, spoke autolexei thus: (Gen. 49:10).” “Parousia,” in Frag. 
IX, is plainly from the context not the second but the first coming of 
Christ, his manifestation to the world. What follows sounds very 
much like the Apostles’ Creed. Indeed, Robinson (Harris, “Aristides’ 
Apol. 2 ,” T.S., I [1893], 23 f.) gives what he considers “the Symbol of the 
Faith in the time of Aristides,” and seems to think (pp. 89!.) it is 
foreshadowed in the K.P. Dobschuetz disagrees with him (p. 62): 
“Dass in unserem Fragm. noch keine Formel vorliegt, zeigt eben jenes 
kolaseis, welches fuer den Weissagungsbeweis charakeristisch, fuer eine 
regula fidei ohne Belang war.” There are snatches of phrases which 
may be imagined into a resemblance of the creed in many places in the 
early apologists and even in the canonical New Testament. For 
instance Acts 13:26-31, where there is mention of God, of Word, whom 
the Jews besought Pilate to kill; “and when they had accomplished all 
things that were written of him, taking him down from the tree, they 
laid him in the tomb. But God raised him up from the dead on the 
third day.” Romans (10:10) mentions an oral profession of faith. 
Such was made by the eunoch before Philip baptized him (Acts 8:37). 


THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


39 


Timothy (I Tim. 6:12) is reminded that he made “a good profession 
before many witnesses.” Hebrews (10:23) exhorts the (Roman?) 
Christians to hold fast an unswerving profession of our hope,” and calls 
Jesus the ‘‘high priest and apostle of our profession.” The questions 
asked the catechumen before baptism are a partitionment of the creed, 
or the creed is a union of those questions. But our earliest certain 
evidence of the creed’s existence is Rufinus (d. 410), in the West, who 
compares the Roman baptismal creed with that of Aquileia, where the 
creed appears in practically its present form. Cyril of Jerusalem, 
about 350 a.d., similarly comments on the baptismal creed in use at 
that time in Jerusalem. It is very nearly the same as the Roman. 
Tertulian, about 200 a.d., in three places ( De praescr. haer. c. 13; De 
virg. vel. c. 1.; Ad Prax. c. 2) outlines the faith which Africa, he says, 
received from the Roman church: “Credendi scl. in unicum Deum 
omnipotentem, mundi conditorem, et Filium ejus Jesum Christum, 
natum ex Virgine Maria, crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato, tertia die resuscit- 
atum a mortuis, receptum in coelis, sedentem nunc ad dexteram Patris, 
venturum judicare vivos et mortuos, per carnis etiam resurrectionem ” 
{De virg. vel. 1). There can be little doubt that, if this is the creed 
the Africans got from the Romans, the Roman creed was very nearly 
the same in the second century that it was in the fourth and now. 
Tertullian himself, after becoming a Montanist, and the defender of the 
Paraclete, adds to his creed (. Adv. Prax. 2): “Qui exinde miserit 
secundum promissionem suam a Patre spiritum Sanctum Paracletum, 
sanctincationem fidei eorum, qui credunt in Patrem et Felium et Spiritum 
Sanctum.” It cannot, however, be safely inferred from this that “the 
Holy Ghost” was not in the creed before Tertullian’s time, at least 
not in the creed which Irenaeus of Lyons represents, which seems to be 
from the church of Smyrnae. Irenaeus gives a summary of faith in 
three places (Adv. haer. i. 10. 1; iii. 4. 2; iv. 33. 7). It is worthy of note, 
however, that {Adv. haer. iii. 4. 2) where he claims to be giving the 
creed of the Roman church, he makes no mention of the Holy Ghost, 
as he does in the other places. Aristides {Apol. 15. 2) says: “Hie 

Jesus igitur de gente Hebraeorum.Ipse ab Judaeis crucifixus 

est, et mortuus et sepultus est, et dicunt post tres dies eum resurrexisse 
et ad caelos ascendisse.” The Syriac and Armenian versions add to 
chapter 2 (cf. Goodspeed, p. 4, n. 6): “Dictum est Deum (eum in 
spiritu sancto A.) de caelo descendisse, et de virgine Hebraea carnem 
cepisse.” Justin {Apol. 13. 3) in answer to the charge that Christians 
are atheists, makes a profession of faith “in Jesus Christ, who was 



40 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


crucified under Pontius Pilate, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, governor 
of Judaea, (we) having been taught that he is the Son of the true God,” 
etc. Similarly in 21. i; 31; 32; 35. 6; 36.3; 50. 12, etc. The sending 
of the apostles into the world is much like the K.P. (49:4; 53 - 2 -)- 
Often Justin speaks of cures effected in Jesus’ name (e.g., 48. 1) and of 
demons expelled (Dial. 85). He is expressly stating the fulfilment of 
prophecy (e.g., Apol. 37. 9; 51. 1; Dial, passim ), and the reason of this 
is clearly seen in Apol. 53. 1. After a long list of quotations from the 
Prophets, he says: 

We have, therefore, many prophecies (many more might be mentioned), 
but I stop here, judging that these are sufficient to convince attentive and 
intelligent hearers, supposing they will be able to understand that not as it 
is said in the myths about those who are said to be the sons of Zeus do we talk 
merely, but have no proof. 

He appeals to instances of mythology, familiar to the Greeks, of appari¬ 
tions of the dead in proof of Christ’s resurrection (Apol. 18-20). And 
in maintaining that Christ is the Son of God (21) he reminds his readers 
that Mercury is called the messenger and Logos of God; Asklepios, 
the physician, ascended to heaven on a thunderbolt; Dionysus, too, 
though mangled, rose again to life and ascended to heaven; Hercules, 
also, ascended from the flames; Perseus was born of a virgin, and, like 
Asklepios, healed the sick; and so many other so-called sons of Zeus 
died and rose again. But Christ did all these things in fulfilment of 
prophecy. He tells them (24): “You pay witnesses to swear they have 
seen dead Emperors ascend to heaven from the funeral-pyre.” He ridi¬ 
cules their worship of animals, their mysteries, and the myths of the 
gods’ and goddesses’ impurities (25). He mentions (29) the recent 
instance of Antinous being deified. He alludes to the practices of 
magicians, and says Christ was not such (30), but fulfilled prophecy. 
And yet it would seem that along with this appeal to prophecy, of 
which the litterateurs were making so much, there was functioning in 
real life the daily increasing practice of magic in the name of Jesus. 
And it is in reference to this practice that Justin, quite unconsciously 
it would seem, gives us the source of the collection of articles of Christian 
faith (Dial. 85): “Every demon exorcised in the name of the Son of 
God, the firstborn of all creatures, who was born of the virgin and endured 
human suffering, who was crucified by your nation under Pontius 
Pilate, who died and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven— 
every demon exorcised in this name, is mastered and subdued.” Similar 


THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


41 


exorcisms occur elsewhere in Justin and the early Christian literature. 
See, for instance, Passion of Peter and Paul, c. 56 (Lipsius-Bonnet, 
I, 166). Origen frequently gives examples of such. The Essenes, 
it is said (cf. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity , I, 157) made 
a vow not to reveal the names of angels. The exorcism formulae of 
the time were made up in great part of such. The much disputed 
“discipline of the secret” among Christians may have been in some way 
related to this Essene practice. “Certain Jewish exorcists at Ephesus” 
are mentioned in Acts (19:13 ff.), “who attempted to invoke the name 
of Jesus upon those who were possessed by evil spirits, saying: ‘I adjure 
you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ And they were certain seven 
sons of the Jewish chief priest, Sceva, who were doing this”—apparently 
a perfectly respectable practice in those days! Note also, that the charge 
under which the apostles were arraigned by the Jewish authorities 
(Acts 4:7) was the practice of magic in the name of Jesus. Matthew 
(21:27), after relating the strange incident of Jesus cursing the fig tree, 
makes the chief priests and elders of the people put this same question 
to Jesus: “By what power do you do these things?” and again (7:22) 
lets Jesus say: “In that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we 
not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out demons, and in 
thy name done many wonders ( dynameis )?”’ Luke (17:10) makes 
the apostles say to Jesus: “Even the demons are subject to us in thy 
name.” It does not at all necessarily follow from this that Jesus or 
the apostles practiced magic, but it is manifest that when the gospels 
and acts were written magic practice had become quite common among 
Christians, and the exorcisms, similar to those in pagan use, were 
convenient statements of Christian belief about Jesus, which the apolo¬ 
gists defended by appeal to Scripture prophecy. 1 

These summaries of Christian faith grew, perhaps imperceptibly, 
into the creed; how early cannot, it seems, be affirmed with any certainty. 
What appears here in the K.P. is doubtless among the earliest attempts 
briefly to state what the apostles preached, and the repeated appeal to 
Scripture proof would point to an early date, and the absence of allusions 
to Greek mythology, so common in other apologies, would indicate an 
atmosphere charged with Jewish influence, not very unlike that of the 
older elements in the earlier chapters of Acts and indeed the sermons given 

1 See F. C. Conybeare, “Christian Demonology,” Jewish Quarterly Review , IX 
(1897), 59-114; also his Myth , Magic , and Morals , for much suggestive material, 
though he is at times too sweeping in his generalizations and undervalues the force of 
Scripture appeal which was in demand among the Gentiles even more than among 
the Jews. Compare the appeal to Scripture among Catholics and Protestants. 


42 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


throughout the Acts (e.g., 17:2 ff.; 28:23 ff.). See also the Epistle of 
Barnabas (5:6-7). 

It is to be noted that, while “faith” ( pistis ), “believing” (pisteu- 
ontes), is the main thing in conversion, even to the ignoring of baptism 
(!), this faith is rather a knowledge, a firm conviction, the result of 
religious experience ( episteme , gnosis , epignontes , epignous). These 
words also occur in other New Testament and early apologetic writings 
(see Grimm-Thayer, N.T. Greek Lexicon , and Goodspeed, Index apolo- 
geticus). There can be no doubt that faith in this sense, as it was 
conceived by Paul 1 was in great measure an adaptation from the Hellen¬ 
istic mystery religions of redemption. 

The “parousia” spoken of (IX) is evidently the first advent of 
Christ, or his manifestation in the incarnation. “The things that are 
to come to pass after him” may refer to the second coming, or the 
“parousia” generally meant in early Christian literature. The Mura- 
torian Fragment (20 ff.) speaks of the two advents: “nativitas, passio, 
resurrectio, censervatio (conversatio ?) cum discipulis, geminus ad- 
ventus.” The absence of insistence on the parousia is remarkable, 
considering the prominence of this thought in other early Christian 
writings. 2 It would seem (from Mt. 24:32-34, compared with 24:23-25, 
or 10:5-23 with 28:19-20) that there is more than one source behind 
even the synoptic view of the parousia. The same difference is notice¬ 
able between the Pauline epistles and the later gospel material; also 
between the Apocalypse and I Peter, for instance, or James (5:7): 
“Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold 
the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth; patiently 
bearing till he receive the earlier and the latter.” It is evidently with 
this latter literature that the K.P. agrees. 

The Petrine Literature. To facilitate comparison with the Preaching 
of Peter, the Gospel of Peter, the Epistles of Peter, the Acts of Peter, 
the Apocalypse of Peter, and the sermons of Peter recorded in the 

1 See W. H. P. Hatch, The Pauline Idea of Faith in Its Relation to the Jewish and 
Hellenistic Religions (1917), especially p. 73; and S. J. Case, The Evolution of Early 
Christianity (1920), especially chap, ix; also R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen 
Mysterienreligionen (1910), pp. 9, 36, 91. For a thorough treatment of Paul’s use of 
the words “faith” and “believe” see E. D. Burton (International Critical Com¬ 
mentary”), The Epistle to the Galatians (1920), pp. 476 ff.) 

2 Mk. 9:9; 13:6-32; 14:62; Mt. 24:3, 32-44; 10:23; 15:26; L. 21:31-36; 22:29- 
30; 22:69; Jo. 6:41; 11:25; 12:25 f.; 12:48; 14:3; 14:28; 16:16 f.; 17:24; 18:36; 
Rom. 13:11; II Thess. 2:1-12; Apoc. 22:7-20; II Pet.3:10,cf. 3:8; Didache,chap. 
16; Ep. Barn., chap. 21; and the apocalyptic generally. 




THE PREACHINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 


43 


Acts of the Apostles and in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions , 
are gathered here, noting only the similarities, though it should be 
remarked that here as elsewhere the dissimilarities are sometimes 
greater. 

The Gospel of Peter (X), 41, mentions the preaching of Christ to the 
souls in prison, which is probably in a K.P. fragment {Strom, vi. 5. 
48 f.) (cf. I Pet. 3:19); (XIV) 59 speaks of “the twelve disciples .” 
“Jesus” and “Azymes” are used as in K.P. “Israel” occurs twice, 
“Jews” six times. The word “Evangelion” might be insisted on. 
It was a common Greek word, but received a new and special meaning, 
apparently in the Petrine tradition (cf. Bacon, Is Mark a Roman Gospel ? 
p. 40). Reading Ev. Pet. 1:1, 45-46, one is convinced he has before him 
a fragment older than Mt. 27:24, 54, certainly older than Mt. 28:18-20. 
“Der neue Fund,” says Dobschuetz (p. 68, n. 1), “legt es allerdings 
nahe, daran zu denken, dass im Kerygma Petri das Evangelium Petri 
benutzt sein moechte.” 

The Epistles of Peter have some material in common with K.P., 
viz.: K.P II; II Pet. 3:4-5—K.P. Ill: I Pet. 1:14—K.P. IV: I Pet. 
3:22; K.P. Ill: I Pet. 1:14—II Pet. 1:4; 2:11—K.P. V: II Pet. 
3:17; V: I Pet. 2:9-10—K.P. VI: II Pet. 3:9—K.P. VII: I Pet. 1:12; 
I Pet. 1:5; 1:10; 1:21; 1:2311.; 2:1-2; II Pet. 1:15 ff.; 3:1—K.P. 
IX; I Pet. 1:11. 

The Acts of Peter with Simon (c. 5 f.): 

Lugentibus autem eis et ieiunantibus, iam insticiebat Deus in futurum 
Petrum in Hierosolymis. Adimpletis duodecim annis quod illi praeceperat 
Dominus, Christus ostendit illi visionem talem, dicens ei: Petre, quem tu 
eiecisti de Judaea adprobatum magum Simonem, iterum praeoccupavit vos 
Romae, et in brevi scias; omnes enim qui in me crediderunt dissolvit astutia 
sua et inergia sua Satanas .... noli moras facere; crastina die profkiscere 
.... [cf. K.P. VI]. 

Schmidt says (“Praxeis Petrou,” T.U., XXIV, 1, p. 81): 

Ob und wie weit das K.P. auf die theologische Gedankenbildung des 
Verfassers der Petrusakten einen merklichen Einfluss ausgeuebt hat . . . . 
laesst sich leider bei den geringen Fragmenten jener Schrift nicht entscheiden. 
Unter aller Reserve moechte ich noch auf die Predigt in Kap. 24 hinweisen, 
wo Petrus dem Simon Magus gegenueber, der die landlaeufigen Einreden der 
Juden und Heiden wider die Gottheit Christi vorbringt, elf Stellen hinterein- 

ander aus prophetischen Biichern citiert.Auf das K.P. fuehrt mich die 

von Clemens Al. Strom, vi. 15. 128 citierte Stelle .... [quoting K.P. IX]. 
Vielleicht waren neben den allegemeinen Angaben auch specielle Citate aus 



44 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


einzellen alttestamentlichen Schriften beigefuegt, jedenfalls ist die theo- 
logische Haltung in den Petrusakten dieselbe, da Petrus seine Predigt mit den 
Worten schliesst: “O viri Romani, si essetis scientes profeticas scripturas” 
[p. 72, 13 ff.]. Ebenso heisst es [p. 61, 8]: “ tractabat eis Petrus de propheticas 
scripturas.” 

The Apocalypse of Peter (c. 5) speaks of “us the twelve disciples,” 
like the K.P. (VII) and the other Petrine writings. 

The Acts of the Apostles gives seven sermons of Peter, which in many 
aspects bear resemblance to the K.P. Compare the following passages: 
K.P. II: A. 3:12-26—K.P. V: A. 2:39 (contrast A. 22:21 ff.)—K.P. 
V: A. 10:35)—K.P. VI-VIII: A. 2:38; 3:17; 3:19; 5:29-33; 10:43— 
K.P. VII: A. 1:16-26; 1:24; K.P. VII: A. 3:16; 10:42—K.P. VII: 
A. 4:4; 6:15; 7:11—K.P. IX: A. 1:16: 2:16-23 (10:35-43); 3:15. 

The Clementina contain much material which was doubtless once 
upon a time common with the K.P., but which cannot now be picked 
out of the vast accretion of romantic fiction. Compare K.P. Ill with 
H. x. 16; x. 9. 23, 25; vi. 23; xvii. 7; R. v. 20. 30. 

“Alle diese Schriften,” says Bardenhewer ( G.A.L. , I, 351), “sind in- 
haltlich auf das engste miteinander verwandt und ohne Zweifel aus einer 
gemeinsamen Vorlage oder Quelle geflossen.” 

From the foregoing comparison it is apparent that as far as can be 
determined from the extant fragments, the sources of the K.P. were 
remotely and indirectly at least both Greek philosophy and O.T. Scrip¬ 
ture; proximately and directly, the principal source was Jewish-Hellenic 
thought, Christianized and restated on the basis of the Petrine tradition. 
In the language, probably of Alexandria in the late first Christian century, 
it restates the personification of Nomos and Logos; belief in, and 
worship of, one only God, invisible, the Creator of the world; repentance 
for sin committed in ignorance; appeal to Scripture and supernatural 
revelation handed down by tradition; polemic against idol, animal, 
and angel worship; and connects all this with the historic person, 
Jesus, a dying, rising, heaven-exalted hero-god, foretold by Scripture, 
and the mediator of a “New Covenant” with God, which is to replace 
the antiquated Greek and Jewish dispensations. 

The similarity of thought and expression between the K.P. and 
Jewish-Hellenistic literature of Alexandria—Wisdom, the Sibyl, Philo— 
and the suspicion of Valentinian Gnosticism which attached to it from 
its having been used by Heracleon, point to an Alexandrine source, 
even if the K.P. were itself free from Gnostic taint. But there is an 


THE PREACHING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 


45 


unmistakable Gnostic flavor in its use of such words as epignous, gnosis, 
dynamis, fsychai logekai, etc. But probably this would be sufficiently 
accounted for by the common use of such vocabulary, borrowed from 
the mystery religions of the day, or possibly by the writer’s former 
initiation into such mysteries, or at least his consciousness of addressing 
men who had been so initiated. 

Waiving the question of relative chronology for the moment, it 
seems impossible to point to any source which the K.P. used verbally. 
It is familiar with N.T. material, especially such material as is found 
in the sermons of Peter in the Acts of the Apostles. But even here 
literary dependence cannot with certainty be affirmed. The two 
documents more probably have a common source. Again, even such 
striking similarity as is seen between K.P. VI and Rom. 10:14, or K.P. 
IX and Jo. 15:22, does not necessarily indicate literary dependence. 
Some kinship of thought and expression must surely be conceded, in 
like manner, between the K.P. and the Hermetic Literature. But 
here again it is probably of an unliterary kind. There is, however, 
unmistakably a literary dependence between the K.P. and the Apology 
of Aristides, of Athenagoras, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Sibyl, the 
Epistle to Diagnetus, the Epistle of Barnabas, and probably also Justin, 
Tatian, and other apologists. 

For the present purpose it will be enough to consider the parallels 
between the K.P. and Aristides, the Shepherd, and Barnabas. 

A careful comparison of K.P. and Aristides will surely leave no 
doubt that either Aristides used the K.P. or vice versa. That K. used A. 
is not only improbable, considering the primitive simplicity of K. and 
the application and repetition of A.—e.g., the “third race” expression 
fits in so naturally in the K. passage, introduced by the comparison of 
the Old Covenant, which is antiquated, with the New, which the Chris¬ 
tians have received and in which they worship God in a “new way” 
as a “third race,” not as the Jews and Greeks—but is also excluded 
by a further comparison of K. with Pastor Hermae and Barnabas. 
It is quite plain that P.H. used K. The literary parallels are too numer¬ 
ous and close to be accounted for in any other way. The material com¬ 
mon to the two is so much more congenial to K. than to P.H. that 
there can be no doubt it was P.H. that borrowed from K. The same is 
true of Barnabas. The prophetic announcement of the parousia, 
sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ; the mission of 
the apostles to preach {keryssein) the forgiveness of sins, to announce 
the future, the exonsia , diatheke, sabbaton proton, neomenias, martyr ion 


46 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


of those who having heard did not believe—all this common material 
cannot have come by accident, and it is plainly more congenial to K.P. 
than to Barnabas. The fact that B. and P. do not use K. so freely as A. 
did, is easily understood, considering the allegorical character of B. 
and the apocalyptic character of P. That K. is so much in accord with 
A. is only another proof of its apologetic character. Moreover, as 
Robinson has already observed (p. 91), the Epistle to Diagnetus has 
material in common with K.P. which does not appear in the present 
Aristides apology. From this it may be argued that the writer to 
Diagnetus had both the K.P. and A. However, considering that our 
Aristides is also quite a patchwork of fragments from the Greek, Syriac, 
and Armenian remnants of the original apology, we cannot press this 
argument. It is highly probable, though, that both Aristides and 
Diagnetus contain other fragments of the K.P. which cannot be recog¬ 
nized, from the lack of more knowledge of what the original K.P. con¬ 
tained. 

It seems reasonable, then, to conclude from what has thus far 
been said, that the K.P. is apologetic in character. This will be still 
more apparent from what is to be said in chapter iii. There seems no 
room for doubt that the K.P. is older than the Aristides apology; and 
room for very little doubt that it is older than the Shepherd of Hernias 
and the Epistle of Barnabas. The date of these writings will be consid¬ 
ered in chapter iv, and an attempt made to determine the date of the 
K.P. more narrowly. 


Ill 

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 

In literary discussion of this kind there is danger, against which one 
must try to be constantly on guard, of forgetting that writings of what¬ 
ever sort, including such apologetics as are here under consideration, 
are little more than the record of the thought of an accomplished few, 
rather philosophically inclined, and that such thought is little more than 
an effort to adjust one’s self consciously to his whole being’s reaction 
to the new situations in which he finds himself drifting with the irresist¬ 
ible stream of ever “changing, testing, shifting” human life of which his 
is a part. The philosophical systems and schools of Greece are but 
expanses of this stream of thought; and the writings which have pre¬ 
served that thought for us are but the record of the adjustment of great 
minds to their environment, an environment composed of elements 
from various earlier sources, blending in the new, as our environment in 
America is a blending of elements that have drifted to us, colored by 
the soil and tempered by the climes through which the stream and all 
its tributaries flowed. When those philosophers discussed the origin 
of things, the composition of bodies, the relation of the gods to man, 
they were doubtless reacting to their environment as vitally as the 
modern pragmatist to the demand of something more “workable” 
than the senescent systems the schools were trying in vain to rejuvenate. 
It was not from mere personal caprice that the “Physiologists” tried to 
define the world in terms of nature. It was doubtless reaction against 
exaggerated Olympianism; as the gods of Olympus were raised to their 
dignity not so much by the poetry of Homer as by the reaction of a race 
of men who were dissatisfied with the grosser “gods of the earth.” Nor 
was it mere aesthetic superiority that lifted Socrates and Plato out of the 
snarling dialetics of the Sophists into “the place of eternal truths”; 
nor again any peculiar earthly-mindedness of Aristotle that planted his 
system firmly on the ground of empiricism; nor desperate pessimism 
and optimism that divided the schools that followed. Real vital 
problems were being struggled with all this time, and the philosophers 
have left us a partial record of their solutions. 

But all this time, outside the cloisters of the philosophers and the 
poets, the mass of Greek men and women engaged in matter-of-fact 


47 


48 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


concerns of life, with all its joys and sorrows, with its cravings for comfort 
and encouragement, and hope-giving assurances that would make life 
worth living, there flowed the unfailing stream of popular religion, 
which was creating, and solving in their very creation, those problems 
over which the philosopher with all his wisdom was worrying. Doubt¬ 
less there were then, as in later times and now, ceremonious demonstra¬ 
tions of grief and gladness, the whole people sympathizing with their 
divine patrons and helpers, and devotion fed the creative imagination 
with additions and modifications of traditional mythology to meet 
new needs, and the new creations inspired fresh devotion, the experience 
of which was a comforting support to a life of trial and toil. These 
mystery religions, springing from undiscovered sources in the dim past, 
had grown and thrived and died away, leaving their heritage to younger 
cults, till, at the birth of Christianity, the Graeco-Roman world was 
rife with popular religions, thrown together in intimate association by 
the mighty empire which not only established means of easy communi¬ 
cation, transportation, and travel from the Isles of the North to the cata¬ 
racts of the Nile and the banks of the Ganges, but shifted great masses of 
population to distant homes, encouraged the wanderlust of the soldier, 
the merchant, the craftsman, and the laborer, and trafficked in slaves as 
extensively as in chattels. 1 

Easily it happened that the stranger in a strange country found 
himself estranged from his gods, and easily he learned to worship in new 
ways. But it also happened that what might have passed unnoticed in 
his home religion, to which he had been inured from childhood, now in 
his new cult aroused his indignation and protest, especially if the 
practice contradicted his standards of morality or demanded expense 
to which he was not accustomed, or which seemed exorbitant. His 
observations called the attention of others to the defects and created 
discontent. Moreover, during the first century b.c. especially, itinerant 
preachers had been popularizing various doctrines which were welcomed 
by those who felt any dissatisfaction with their old religion—not to the 
abandonment of the old, but to a considerable detriment, as it helped 
them to a more enlightened view which gradually prepared the ground 
for world-religions like Mithraism and Christianity, and which Judaism 
might have been, could it have been denationalized. 2 The Egyptian 

1 See Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity , especially chaps, iii and vi: L. 
Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms .’, chaps, iii and vii and i, pp. 158-237, 389 ff. 

2 M. Friedlaender, Gescliichte der jucdischcn Apologetik als Vorgeschichte des Chris- 
tentums, pp. 99, 292; Zeller, 1114,315 f.; and Krueger , Philo und Josephus als Apologeten 
des Judenthums (Leipzig, 1906), p. 44. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


49 


mysteries of Isis worship, the Phrygian cult of Cybele and Attis, 
especially, were widely popular. But it would seem that no other religion 
of the Mediterranean world made such a strong appeal to the moral 
sense as the Jewish. 

After Alexander’s diffusion of Hellenic culture had created such 
centers of enlightenment as Alexandria and Antioch, and the cities of 
Cilicia and Asia Minor were thronged with Greeks and orientals, it was 
but natural that Jews in this “Hellenic Dispersion” should, like their 
fellow-citizens, become aware of certain antiquated disadvantages of 
their religion, as well as of its superior elements, and seek to readjust 
their beliefs and practices to the demands of this newly awakened 
religious consciousness. The Jew never entirely broke away from his 
national connection with Jerusalem, and there was continual communica¬ 
tion between “the Holy City” and “the children of God that were 
dispersed.” This communication mutually affected the Palestinian 
and the Hellenistic Jew. Saul of Tarsus was “raised a Pharisee,” and 
there was at Jerusalem (Acts 6:9) a strong element with pronounced 
Hellenistic tendencies. The opposition, as usual, emphasized the points 
of difference, the one party insisting ever more rigorously on conformity 
to “the traditions of the Fathers,” the other protesting against man- 
imposed burdens. 

The political situation and national vicissitudes following the 
Babylonian captivity, enhanced by the struggle against the Syrian 
monarchs, whetted the pious Jews’ expectancy of a messianic deliverer, 
or provoked them to look for a general collapse of the wicked world, 
to be followed by a new state of things in which “the people of God 
would be triumphant,” “when Japheth would dwell in the tabernacles 
of Shem, and Canaan be his slave.” This apocalyptic hope was strong 
enough to keep many a good Jew to a faithful observance of the Law. 
Others looked for a more worldly kingdom, and sought to appease the 
existing ruler, or threaten him with God’s vengeance, while making the 
best of a hard lot. While outside of Palestine, especially in Alexandria, 
the Jews had given up in great part the observance of the Law and placed 
their hope in a virtuous life 1 they still clung to their Jewish nationalism 
and a more or less dormant hope of a future Messiah. 

This messianic hope of the Jews was nothing strange to their gentile 
neighbors. A Golden Age of some description was the vague hope 
that comforted many a one who took a pessimistic view of the world. 
But it was the beautiful life of virtue the Jew aspired to, and the sublime 

1 Strabo xvi. 2. 55, and Diodorus ii. 85; xx. 3. 


5o 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


spirituality of the incomparable Hebrew Scriptures that most attracted the 
better sort of folk among the Gentiles. 1 The Hebrew Scriptures had been 
translated into Greek and several excellent contributions of Alexandrine 
composition added, especially adapted to the Hellenistic world. These 
Scriptures were not unknown to the educated Greek-speaking world 
and could be heard read in the synagogues, of which there were many 
in the cities and larger towns. It is estimated 2 that there were in the 
first century b.c. a million Jews in Egypt. And at Rome, where they 
had begun to locate in the time of the Maccabees, and were greatly 
multiplied in Pompey’s time (63 b.c.), there were at the end of the first 
century b.c. not less than 8,000. 3 Proselytes and “Godfearers” were 
numerous, in spite of the nationalist restrictions and humiliating condi¬ 
tions for obtaining this much coveted participation in the Jewish religion. 
There can be no doubt that had these restrictions been relaxed the 
Jewish religion would have given fair promise of becoming a world- 
religion. It was this attraction to Judaism and the easy conditions of 
admission that gave Christianity such recommendation when it appeared. 

From an all but imperceptible beginning in Palestine, a new religious 
movement, the offspring of the Jewish religion which the world had long 
admired but which shut out the Gentile from full and free share in its 
nationalizing exclusiveness—a movement instinct apparently from the 
start with Hellenistic humanness and world-wide sympathy, centered 
about the lovable person of Jesus, whom the Jewish authorities had 
succeeded irj. having the Roman governor remove by execution, but 
whose memory lived on and gave life and light and enthusiasm to those 
who found in him the living expression of all that was best in the religion 
they demanded as their own and the whole world’s. The opposition 
and persecution excited by the little band of Jesus’ disciples brought 
them to the realization of the fact that they were one, inasmuch as they 
were the common object of Jewish persecution, and that their “com¬ 
munity” made little distinction between “Jew and Greek.” Forceably 
driven, if not freely emerging, beyond Palestine, communities sprang 
up in all the Mediterranean world. Love of God and man, enthusiastic 
attachment to Jesus and all his name stood for, and an ardent hope of 
his glorious return, an unwavering assurance ( pistis ) resulting from 
religious experience of having broken with sin and turned to God 

1 Schuerer, III, 24 f. 

2 Schuerer, Die Gemeindverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit (Leipzig, 
1897), p. 61. For an exhaustive treatment see Juster, Les Juifs dans Vempire romaine. 

3 Pliny Ep. x. 96. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


51 


('metanoia ), mystically signified by baptism and manifested by spiritual 
emotion (cf. e.g., Acts 10:44)—these, and not nationality or other 
formality, made disciples of Jesus, and made them in countless numbers, 
not only among the Jews of the Dispersion but also and especially 
among the Gentiles. Within half a century the new religion had 
spread around the shores of the Mediterranean and grown so prominent 
that we hear complaints of the pagan temples being vacated. 1 

While Christianity was thus rapidly spreading; while the mission¬ 
aries were concerned almost exclusively with their new converts, instruct- 
ing them principally by preaching, or by letters as occasion demanded; 
while the Christians themselves lived in the enthusiasm of their new 
religious experience and fervent expectation of the coming of Christ, little 
attention was given to parrying pagan attacks upon the new religion. 
But toward the end of the first century, when the prophet John of Ephesus 
lifts up his voice in an apocalyptic burst of zeal to deplore that the 
churches ‘"have left their first love,” or are “blasphemed by the syna¬ 
gogue of Satan,” or are annoyed by “those teaching the doctrine of 
Balaam,” or are “eating things offered to idols,” or are “dead” spirit¬ 
ually, or “are neither hot nor cold”; when “heresies” are beginning to 
break out; when the spiritually gifted are in clash with the worldly 
prudent who are trying to restore order by means of organization; 
when the church of Rome is called upon to assume the responsibility of 
leadership (Heb. 5:12), and responds with a tone of authority and a 
note of irenic conciliation, counseling respect and obedience to civil 
authority instead of frantic insubordination, unity instead of division, 
and begins actively to quell religious rebellion even at Corinth; when 
we find “Catholic” epistles, or encyclical letters, and those carefully 
composed “Gospels,” in circulation; when the Teaching of the Twelve 
Apostles is beginning to be insisted upon as the norm of Christian 
belief and practice, and the Acts of the Apostles recounts the origin and 
growth, under the guidance of the promised Spirit of Truth, of the 
“Church” and the organization of its “ministry”—it is plainly time to 
expect that Christian writers are ready to devote their attention not 
only to “those within” but also to take cognizance of the interests of the 
church even among those “who are not of the fold.” 

Christianity was not the first religion that had struggled for existence 
in the Mediterranean world. It was not the first that had been perse¬ 
cuted and calumniated. And when it saw itself confronted by opposi¬ 
tion and called upon to defend itself, it had not far to look for material 

1 Pliny Ep. x. 97. 


52 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


and a model for its task. For centuries rationalizing Greek philosophy 1 
had been conducting a polemic against irrational superstition and 
idolatry, while at the same time portraying in eloquent language the 
dignity of man, the beauty of virtue, the well-ordered providence of the 
universe, the unity of nature which it extolled as God. Ridicule of 
divination, of animal and idol-worship, of superstition, of the impurities 
and debaucheries of the gods and goddesses, had become commonplaces 
of polite literature and philosophy. 2 The mystery cults had allegorized 
and spiritualized traditional mythology into quite a respectable, often 
truly sublime, system of theology. 3 Historians and scientists had 
tendered their service to the cause of truth. But it was especially the 
great Jewish apologists 4 that directly influenced the Christians, for the 
attacks upon Christianity were often identical 5 with those upon Judaism, 
the two religions being for some time hardly distinguishable to the 
heathen. 6 

In a certain sense, the entire Old Testament, especially the Septuagint 
translation, was an apology for Judaism. Not only is this clear from the 
result of that translation and the use it served the Alexandrine Jews, 
but it is explicitly stated in such apologetic literature as the Pseudo- 
Aristeas Letter. The Epistle of Jeremy, the Books of Maccabees, 
Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Apocalypses of Daniel, of Baruch, of Enoch, 
the Sibyl , the Wisdom of Jesu Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon, 
are in great part apologetic. But it was in Alexandria in the second 
century b . c . that Jewish apologetic in the stricter sense began. “Polem¬ 
ical tracts forged against the Jews came into vogue during the reign of 
Physcon (146-117 b . c .), and they certainly continued to be the fashion” 
(Mahaffy, quoted by Charles, Jewish Apoc. and Pseudepig., I, 158). 
Calumnies of every variety were invented to arouse suspicion or hatred 

1 Decharme, La Critique des traditions religieuses chez le Grecs; Dodeckenmeyer, 
Die Geschichte des gr. Skeptismus; Case, chap. viii. 

2 Origen Contra Cels. i. 26; v. 6; Geffcken, Zweigr. Apol., XXIV, 41 and 73. 

3 Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterien Religionen; and Case, chap. ix. 

4 M. Friedlaender, Geschichte der juedischen Apologetik als Vor geschichte des 
Christentums, Zuerich, 1913. 

5 For instance, the calumny that the Jews adored an ass’s head, Josephus 
Against Apion ii. 7; see Friedlaender, Gesch.jued. Apol., p. 375; Tacitus v. 3-4 and 
v. 5. The same calumny was spread against Christians, see Min., Felix , Octavius , 
chaps, ix, xxviii; and Tertullian Apol. xvi; the Graffiti, still extant in the Kirchini- 
anum, Rome, representing either a Christian or a Jew adoring a crucified ass, is well 
known. 

6 See Suetonius Vita Claudi 25. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


53 


against the Jews. History was falsified, the Jewish practices were 
ridiculed, their antiquity denied, their morality reproached, their racial 
attachment misinterpreted, their exclusiveness was considered mis¬ 
anthropy, their aversion to pagan worship declared treason, and such 
ridiculous stories as that they adored an ass’s head in the Holy of Holies 
in Jerusalem told and believed. Aristobulus, who wrote about 170-150 
b.c., is said to have been the first Jewish apologist, but what is attributed 
to him is probably not older than the first century b.c. Philo, early in 
the first century a.d., and Josephus, toward the end of that century, 
were the greatest of Jewish apologists whose works have been preserved. 
Of Artapanus not much is known, further than that he lived in Egypt 
in the beginning of the first century b.c. and defended Judaism against 
heathen calumny, contending that the Egyptians were greatly indebted 
to them, and pointing out the ridiculous features of animal and idol 
worship. It is especially noteworthy that he claims Abraham taught 
the Egyptians astrology, betraying the favor which astral learning 
enjoyed among the Egyptian Jews of the first century b.c. 

In answer to the heathen calumnies the Jews not only pointed to 
their history, their Scriptures, their law, the high esteem in which they 
were regarded by the better sort of pagans themselves, but gave examples 
of their wisdom, their heroism, their philanthropy. In refutation of the 
charge that they were traitors they called attention to their patent practice 
of praying daily for the Emperor, though, as Josephus records them as 
saying ( B.J. ii. 10. 4) when they protested against Petronius erecting 
the Emperor Gaius’ statue in the Temple at Jerusalem: “For the 
Emperor and the Roman people we offer sacrifice thrice a day, but he 
will have to slaughter the whole Jewish people before he can erect this 
statue; they are ready to offer themselves and their wives and children 
there in sacrifice.” Against the charge of misanthropy Philo reminds 
the accusers that the Jews forbid abortion and the exposure of infants, 
and love even animals. 1 Nothing was more often remarked by the 
pagans than that the Jews were atheists, not worshiping the gods, and 
nothing was so emphatically denied by the Jews, and in their apology 
they took advantage of the opportunity to instruct their readers in lessons 
of love to God, the Father of all, to all mankind; mercy, purity, faithful¬ 
ness, piety, and every virtue. Much, if not all, of Philo’s work was apolo¬ 
getic, but directly so were his great treatises Against Flaccus , and On the 
Legation to Cains. These two works became models for Christians to 
imitate, and following Philo’s example the Christian apologists, almost 

1 Friedlaender, Gesch.jued. Apol., p. 278. 


54 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


without exception during the second century, addressed their apologies 
to the emporer. The much discussed treatise of Philo on the Therapeutae 
or The Contemplative Life , is clearly shown by Wendland 1 to be apologetic. 
Wendland, in that pioneer investigation of this field, also points out 
that Philo was not entirely original in his work, but had freely used 
the polemic against idolatry made by early Greek writers, especially 
the academic skeptics. Philo’s fascinating portrayal of the beauty of 
such a life as he imagines (?) the Therapeutae, or “ the elite of the 
Jewish spiritualists, ” were leading, was doubtless the suggestion and the 
source of similar descriptions of Christian life in the apologies of Aristides 
and Athenagoras and the Letter to Diagnetus, and all the Christian 
apologies almost without exception. It has already been briefly indi¬ 
cated that the Christian apologists and theologians were greatly indebted 
to the Logos doctrine of Philo, and it might be shown that Philo was 
in turn indebted to Greek philosophy and the mystery religions, especially 
the Hermetic. Not only does Philo frankly and frequently acknowledge 
his indebtedness to tradition, but how freely he used sources is glaringly 
apparent from the conflicting elements which he is not even at pains 
to harmonize. 

This Jewish-Hellenistic traditional lore passed almost bodily to the 
Alexandrine Christians, and has been preserved especially by Clement. 2 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Christianity of Alexandria 
owed quite as much to Philo as Hellenic Christianity owed to Paul, or 
Palestinian Christianity to rabbinical Judaism. 

Flavius Josephus, though writing toward the end of the first Christian 
century, manifestly influenced Christian apologetic. In fact he has 
been claimed by some to have been a Christian. 3 His great work, 
The Antiquities of the Jews , is professedly apologetic, as he acknowledges 
in the opening paragraph of his polemic Against Apion, which was exten¬ 
sively drawn upon by Christian apologists. His own Life is unmistak¬ 
ably apologetic in tone and quite appropriately might have been entitled 
“Apologia pro vita sua et suae gentis.” His Wars of the Jews also is 
apologetic, inasmuch as it tries to place the responsibility for that war 
where it properly belonged and to demonstrate the courage and other 
virtues of the Jews, if not indeed to maintain that Vespasian was the 
fulfilment of the messianic prophecies. 

1 Paul Wendland, op. cit.; cf. Friedlaender, Gesch.jued. Apol., pp. 230, 248, 262; 
“Therapeutae,” pp. 695 f. 

2 Bousset, Juedisch-christlicher Schidtrieb in Alexandria und Rom , 1915. 

3 See Krueger, p. 2. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


55 


From here it was an easy step, if indeed it was any step at all, and 
not rather a continuation of Jewish apologetic, for the Christians to 
take up the defense of the new religion. 1 And it was but to be expected 
that the first Christian apologetic should be the product of that 
Alexandrine Jewish-Hellenistic tradition which had become the 
Christian Heritage. 

While, therefore, we find reason for the appearance of the apologies 
of Quadratus 2 and Aristides 3 and Justin 4 in the persecution which seems 
to have broken out in Asia Minor and Greece in the second century, 5 
we need no such event to account for the beginning of apologetic at 
Alexandria, even though evidence of the outbreak of persecution there 
were lacking, 6 where the Jews were in such numbers, whom the Christian 

1 Geffcken, Zwei gr. Apol., Introduction, passim. 

2 Little is known of Quadratus. Eusebius ( Chron. ad a. Abr. 2140; H.E. 4. 4) 
says he was a disciple of the apostles, gifted with prophecy (cf. Zahn, For., G.N.T.K ., 
VI [1900], 41 ff.), who (apparently in Asia Minor) addressed an apology for Christianity 
to the Emperor Hadrian, presumably on one of his visits to Asia Minor in the year 
124 or 129. Only a brief fragment of the apology is extant (Goodspeed, A.A., p. 1) 
complaining that the Christians are calumniated by wicked men, and maintaining in 
proof of the resurrection of Christ that some of those who saw him risen lived even 
to the writer’s day (cf. Bardenhewer, G.A.L., I, 168 f.). 

3 Of Aristides, a philosopher of Athens, who according to Eusebius {Chron. ad. a. 
Abr. 2140; H.E. 4.4) addressed an apology for Christianity to the Emperor Hadrian, 
little more was known than of Quadratus till the Syriac version of his Apology was 
found in 1889, and by means of this the Greek was at least in great part recognized 
in the Barlaam and Joasaph romance, cc. 26-27. An excellent reconstructed edition 
of all that is left of Aristides’ Apology will be found in Goodspeed’s A.A., pp. 3 f. 
Cf. Bardenhewer, G.A.G., I, 171, and the literature there given; also Geffcken, Zwei 
gr. Apol., op. cit. 

4 Justin Martyr, from Fla via Neopolis, had been studying the philosophy of 
various schools when he became a Christian, probably about the time of the Jewish 
war, and shortly after wrote his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (132-35). He continued 
wearing his philosopher’s mantle and teaching philosophy in Rome, where he was 
martyred about the year 163 or 167. His great apology is addressed to Antoninus 
Pius (138-61). In chap. 46 he says, “Christ was born 150 years ago.” To this he 
wrote a shorter apology or appendix. The text is given in Goodspeed, A.A., pp. 
26-265. For literature see Bard., G.A.L., I, 190 f. 

s Eusebius {H.E. 4. 26, 5-11; Goodspeed, A.A., p. 309) quotes from the Apology 
of Melito from Sardis, reminding Marcus Aurelius that Hadrian had put a stop to 
Christian persecution in Asia Minor and in Larissa, Thessalonica, Athens, and other 
cities of Greece. 

6 Next to nothing is known about Christianity in Egypt till late in the second 
century, nor is there any historic ground for supposing Christian apologetic to have 
been provoked in Egypt by violent opposition. The much disputed Disputatio 


56 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


apologists assert to have been everywhere the instigators of persecution 
against Christians, as they appear in Acts and the Martyrdom of 
Polycarp. It was not surprising, therefore, since Christianity was under 
the same charges as Judaism of atheism, misanthropy, immorality, 
murder, that these four “accusations” ( enklemata ) were the ones the 
Christian apologists most commonly essayed to refute, and in their 
refutation insisted first of all upon the Christian worship of one God, 
invisible, and with all the other attributes Christians had learned from 
Jews and Greeks. Indeed it is surprising—or is it?—that we find so 
little in early Christian apologetic that is really new! 

We should not, then, be surprised to find that the “Beginnings of 
Christian Apologetic” are the continuation of Jewish and Greek, follow¬ 
ing and recording the beginnings of Christianity in its rapid assimilation 
and renovation of all the age was demanding for its new religion, leaving 
it to the theologians of the third and following centuries to systematize 
this vast amalgamation of multifarious elements into a harmonious 
whole, as the great churchmen were set the task of organizing and 
unifying the hordes of converted pagans into the Catholic church. 

The Christianity the apologists thus essayed to defend, and defending 
to propagate, was not yet the harmonious teaching and smoothly working 
institution of later centuries. They had to fix upon some conventionally 
recognized representative of their common beliefs and practices, some 
accepted traditional channel of the doctrine and authority they held. 
What tradition would be more likely to commend itself than the Petrine ? 
and what center more suitable than Rome, where that Petrine tradition 
had taken firm root ? It is not, therefore, wonderful that the first apology 
for Christianity should appear as “The Preaching of Peter,” stating the 
doctrines which “the twelve disciples,” “faithful apostles,” were 
commissioned to teach “the world.” 

The difference, then, between apologetic proper and the books of 
the canonical New Testament is not necessarily one of time; though, 
of course, inasmuch as the canonical books represent rather the genesis 
of Christianity than its defense, the genesis had naturally to precede 
the defense; still the genesis is really never ending, and there may have 
been call for defense in the earliest days of Christianity’s genetic develop- 

Jasonis Hebraei Christiani et Papisci Alexandrini Judaei , cited by Celsus (Origen 
Contra Celsam 4. 51), attributed to Ariston of Pella by Maximus Confessor (Scholi 
in Dion. Areop. De myst. theol. 1. 3; M.P.G . 4. 4. 21), was probably, like Justin’s 
Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, a fictitious discussion which had no historic connection 
with Alexandria. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


57 


ment. Moreover, the New Testament books, as they now appear, are 
probably not all in their original form, and a primitive apology, such 
as the K.P. seems to be, might have been written before such a theological 
treatment of Christianity as, for instance, the Fourth Gospel. Again, 
as apologetic need not, and really never does, confine its attention to 
defense, but also instructs and even advances the constructive evolution 
of the religion it is defending—witness for instance the constructive 
evolution of theology, the idea of God, the divinity of Christ, dogmatic 
expression of belief, in second-century apologetic—so also such genetic 
literature as the New Testament books need not, and certainly do not, 
exclude apologetic elements. After all, it is really a matter of relative pre¬ 
ponderance of apologetic or genetic elements that characterize and classify 
the treatise, and this dominant element is discerned primarily in the appeal 
to its audience; the apologetic designating its audience as, in some 
measure at least, opposed to the subject-matter, which is therefore to 
be defended, not simply stated or explained or amplified. The test, 
therefore, to be applied to determine whether a given treatise is of 
apologetic or genetic character is, What is the attitude of the audience 
to which it appeals ? 

Applying this test to the New Testament books, we cannot mistake 
their character as genetic treatises on Christianity addressed to an 
audience already in sympathy with the subject-matter. And yet it 
must be admitted that, even though addressed to those who are already 
Christians, the New Testament, as has ever been recognized, is perhaps 
the most efficient apologetic. This additional effectiveness, however, 
does not change the primary character of the genetic treatise. Consider¬ 
ing the developmental character of Christianity, we might even go so 
far as to maintain that a treatise on Christianity would not be genetic, 
or have any right to exist at all, did it entirely exclude the apologetic 
element. Surely the Fourth Gospel is addressed to Christian readers, 
and appreciation of that Gospel’s depth and beauty and value increases 
with Christian experience. Yet, how clear the tone of apology sounds 
in it! What an irresistible appeal it must have made to the Greek who 
was “of God”! It implies that a demand was felt in certain Christian 
circles for a restatement of what Jesus meant to the believer, a restate¬ 
ment in the thought and language and tone of a Christian community 
which the demonology of Mark and the prophetic appeal of Matthew no 
longer fully satisfied. The presupposition is granted that Jesus is God. 
But what does this mean in the language of the Greek who thinks in 
terms of the Logos ? “To recast Christian thinking, anxious to conserve 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


58 

whatever was distinctive and essential in it,” was, as Scott expresses 
it, “the purpose and theology” of the author of the Fourth Gospel 

(P- 3 SS)- 

He goes back to the facts of gospel history, and seeks to present them to 
his contemporaries as the eternal basis of their faith. The reconstruction of 
doctrine is everywhere subsidiary to this practical purpose of affirming once 
for all the supreme value of the historical revelation in Jesus .... Jesus 
was the Word, the final and absolute revelation of God to men. But His 
earthly appearance, instead of exhausting the revelation, was only the begin¬ 
ning of it [p. 375]. 

He is not unmindful of the problems that may be in his reader’s mind, 
and he takes cognizance of the errors that are rife in his environment. 
He becomes the apologist for the moment, but only because his reader 
for the moment is viewed as his possible opponent. He even views 
himself as his opponent, as Justin, the great apologist, enters into debate 
with himself while ostensibly refuting Trypho’s supposed objection 
that Christians are making of Jesus “another god,” and the apologist 
has to pause to regain his grip on himself before he can proceed to attack 
his adversary. 

The Acts of the Apostles, too, is to such an extent apologetic that 
one might reasonably suppose the “most excellent Theophilus” to be 
a heathen whom the writer was trying to convert, but for the reference 
to “ the former treatise, ” written that Theophilus “might know the truth 
of those things in which he had been catechized” (L. 1:4). 

In spite, therefore, of the abundant apologetic material in the 
New Testament books, they are quite evidently addressed to Christian 
readers, and so not properly apologies. Similarly, in spite of the 
catechetical (if so it may be called) element in such treatises as Justin’s 
Dialogue with Trypho or Athenagoras’ Supplication for the Christians , 
these are plainly apologetic. 

Applying the test of audience to the K.P., we cannot mistake its 
character. Fragmentary as it lies before us, it nevertheless unmistak¬ 
ably appeals to those who are uncertain whether there be one God, or 
of what nature he is; whether they should worship him as do the Jews; 
whether it is right to worship idols and animals and offer them sacrifice; 
whether there is any proof for the Christians’ claim that they alone 
worship God aright; and who and what is Christ. The work is plainly 
of primitive character, and the writer considers his audience at least 
willing hearers. He even seems to take it for granted that they are 
listening to and accepting his words, “holily and justly learning what he 


THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 


59 


has delivered to them,” and are waiting to be told what to do “to be 
saved.” He is not remonstrating with the heathen, as, for instance, 
Tatian is, inviting defeat by abusive harshness. Nor is he pleading with 
unjust persecutors, as is Justin in his Apology to the Emperor. His 
audience, we should surmise, is one in which Jews and Egyptian Hellen¬ 
ists, not entirely unacquainted with Christianity, listen reasonably to 
his appeal, yet demand proof of what he says, proof especially from 
those sacred Scriptures they have already learned to revere and trust. 


IV 

COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


i. Name. —The word kerygma is common throughout the range of 
Greek literature, from Herodotus (3. 52; 5. 92; 6. 78, etc.) to the 
present, meaning “that which is cried by a herald or crier,” “a proc¬ 
lamation,” “public notice” (Liddell-Scott, Gk.-Eng. Lex.)', “preach¬ 
ing, particularly the preaching of the Gospel ” (Sophocles, Gr.-Eng. Lex., 
Roman and Byzantine Periods), in which meaning it occurs frequently 
in the New Testament (I Cor. 1:21; 2:4; 15:14; Rom. 16:25; Mk. 
12:4; L. 11:32; Jo. 3:4; II Tim. 4:17; Tit. 1:3, Grimm) and in 
Christian literature generally. It derives from the verb keryssein, 
“to be, officiate as, a herald”; “to proclaim”; “to preach.” Cognate 
words are: kerygmos, keryxis, the act of proclaiming or preaching; 
kerykeia, the office of a herald or preacher, etc. The root word is keryx , 
“a herald,” “public messenger,” “ambassador” (Lat. praeco, legatus), 
frequent in Homer. “From the heroic times their office was sacred 
and their persons inviolable, as being under the immediate protection 
of Jupiter” (L.-S.). Hermes was the keryx of the gods. Cf. I Clem. 
5:6, applied to Paul. In our fragments kerygma plainly means “ Preach¬ 
ing” in the sense of that which is preached, like the Italian predica. 
Hence it was easily confused with “teaching,” that which is taught, 
didaskalia, and translated into Latin doctrina as well as praedicatio. 

The name “Peter.” “In the early part of the second century,” 
says Professor Goodspeed, 1 “various books were written in Christian 
circles about the Apostle, or even in his name, until one could have 
collected a whole New Testament bearing his name. There were a 
Gospel of Peter, Acts of Peter, the Teaching of Peter, the Preaching of 
Peter, the Epistles of Peter, and the Revelation of Peter. Most of these 
laid claim to being from the pen of Peter himself.” 

The writer of the kerygma says (IX): “We, opening the books we 
have of the Prophets,” etc., and Clement says he is speaking of the 
apostles. Does it necessarily follow from this that the writer claimed 
to be Peter the Apostle? Elsewhere (VI), the writer seems to imply 
plainly enough that he is not one of “the apostles” to whom Jesus said, 
“ I have chosen you twelve, ” etc. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles 

1 The Story of the New Testament, p. 134. 

60 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


61 


says (6:2): “It is not fitting that we/’ etc., merely quoting Peter in 
the first person, without at all pretending that the writer is Peter! 
Origen (Horn. X in Lev.) refers to “a certain little book Ab apostolis 
dictum , ” and (De princ. praef. 8), probably referring to the same “little 
book,” says: “First it is to be answered that that little book is not 
numbered among ecclesiastical (canonical ?) books, and it is to be shown 
that neither is it a writing of Peter, nor of anyone else who was inspired 
by the spirit of God.” Does he mean that Origen intends “to show” 
this? He wrote these works before 218 a.d. (Harnack, Chronale , II 
[ I 9 ° 4 ] ? 30 f-)- But he is still promising, when he wrote book xiii of his 
commentary on John, “to make a careful investigation also concerning 
that little book, whether it be genuine or spurious or mixt.” He is 
apparently no better informed than he was years before, though he 
knows Heracleon’s quotation of the K.P. is “often repeated,” and 
himself repeats it in a rather negligent way. His quotation (or quota¬ 
tions ?) is second hand. Why did he not quote directly ? Why did he 
defer his promised investigation? Had he the K.P. at all? Had he 
ever seen it? It would be interesting to know whether Origen really 
knew anything about the K.P. more than what he had read in Clement 
and heard of Heracleon and others! If our only reason for thinking the 
K.P. writer wished to pose as the apostle Peter is Clement’s manner of 
introducing his words and Origen’s second-hand hearsay hasty remarks, 
it were better to leave the question open. Had the writer wished to 
pretend to be Peter the Apostle, he would not likely have written of the 
apostles in the third person. This is not the fashion of the other plainly 
pretentious works of “Peter.” 

The Gospel of Peter (e.g., 14:59) says: “We, the twelve disciples,” 
and (60): “I, Simon Peter, and Andrew my Brother.” And I Peter, 
even if the pretentious preamble be considered a later addition, quite 
plainly implies that the writer claims to be Peter, writing from Rome 
(“Babylon”), and sending greetings of “his son Mark” (5:13)—unless, 
indeed, 5:12-14 also be a later addition: 5:11 being a very appropriate 
ending. Also II Peter, apart from the preamble, implies that the writer 
claims to be one of those who were with Jesus at the Transfiguration 
(1:17-18; cf. Mt. 17:5); who is soon to die, as “the Lord Jesus Christ 
had foretold” (1:14; cf. Jo. 21:18-19); an d promises to provide that 
they will have after his death a record ( mnemen ) of these things (1:15), 
presumably some such record as the Acts of Peter. The writer of the 
Apocalypse of Peter does not give his name in any of the extant frag¬ 
ments, though he speaks as one of Jesus’ disciples: “And we were 


62 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


praying” (c. 3); “ and I came near to the Lord and said to him . . . . 
and he said to me” (c. 4). Yet according to Clement: “Peter, in the 
Apocalypse, says,” etc. (Ed. Proph. 48,49). Had Clement better reason 
than we for attributing the Apocalypse to Peter ? 

It is not, of course, necessary that a writer give his name. Anony¬ 
mous writing was very common at this time. Nor do we, as a rule, find 
a writer giving his name without reason. Such anxious insistence 
upon recognition as that, for instance, which the writer of the Gospel 
of Peter, betrays, is suspicious; it makes one feel uneasy, lest the writer 
be not really who he pretends to be. Might it not be that Clement 
speaks of “ Peter saying in the Kerygma, ” as we might speak of “ Homer 
saying in the Odyssey , ” though we are well aware the writer nowhere 
reveals his identity, and we may feel very certain that Homer never 
said any such thing? Justin (Dial. 106. 3), after mentioning Peter, 
says: “And it is written in his memoirs” (apparently meaning Mk. 
3:16-17). Might it not be that the writer of the K.P. no more wished 
to pass for Peter than the writer of the Apology of Socrates wished to 
pass for Socrates ? Without venturing to solve the problem, the present 
writer would suggest the opinion that the Kerygma was first in current 
circulation as a faithful representation of that preaching for which 
the apostolic source was Peter, just as what was later known as the 
Gospel of Mark was first in circulation as a faithful representation of the 
gospel of Jesus, for which the apostolic source was Peter, and was referred 
to by Justin as such. Later the title “The Gospel according to Mark” 
was affixed to it. Similarly, “the Preaching of Peter” was affixed to 
the Kerygma. 

2. Relation of the K.P. to the other writings of Peter. —It has been 
shown that there is some similarity and generally admitted relation 
between the K.P. and the five old writings known as the Gospel of Peter, 
the Acts of Peter, the First and Second Epistles of Peter, and the 
Apocalypse of Peter. It should be remarked that in their present form, 
which, at least in the case of Acts of Peter, is certainly not the original, 
the date of origin is difficult to determine with anything like certainty. 
Approximately the Apocalypse may be dated, say, 120 a.d.; the Gospel 
before 200 a.d. ; the Acts about 200 a.d. ; the First Epistle in Domitian’s 
reign (81-96 a.d.); the Second Epistle about the same time as the first 
appearance of the Acts of Peter (cf. II Pet. 1:15), or some new edition 
of those Acts. But these dates are merely “approximations” of a very 
loose kind. There is nothing in the Apocalypse of Peter to determine 
its date narrowly. It might have been written toward the end of the 


COMMENTARY ON TEE FRAGMENTS 


63 


first century. It has already been remarked that portions of the Gospel 
of Peter (e.g., 1:1; 11:45-46, compared with Mt. 27:24, 54) impress 
one as primitive. However, since the earliest definite evidence extant 
of the existence of the Gospel of Peter is what Eusebius relates ( H.E . 
6. 12, 3-6): that Serapion of Antioch ( ca . 200 a . d .) found on one of 
his episcopal visitations among the Christian community at Rhossus 
“a Gospel under the name of Peter,” and objected to its reading; and 
later found the same Gospel among a “Docetic” community of Antioch 
(and it does contain expressions apparently Docetic); there is not 
sufficient proof to date it earlier than the middle of the second century. 1 
The Muratorian Fragment, 2 generally dated about 200 a . d ., says the 
Apocalypse of Peter was received, though some did not wish to have it 
read in church. The M.F. reference to the Acts, mentioning the martyr¬ 
dom of Peter and Paul’s journey to Spain, may mean the “ Actus Petri 
c. Sim.” (VI) in which these events are related, but not in the Lucan 
Acts. 3 The First Epistle of Peter was probably written in Domitian’s 
reign, and its style is so much like that of the Epistles to the Hebrews, 
the most elegant in the New Testament, and of the First Epistle of 
Clement to the Corinthians, that it has been plausibly maintained that 
they are from the same author. 4 The prominent individuality of the 
writer, and of what type he was, can best be observed by a careful 
reading of the Epistle, and an analysis of its thought and language, its 
purpose, destination, and provenence. Origen (Euseb. H.E. vi. 14. 1-4) 
comments at some length on the style of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and says: “The tradition has come down to us that Clement the Bishop 
of the Romans wrote the Epistle.” Jacquier (I, 482) concludes: 

Du texte m6me de l’epitre et des etudes que nous venons de faire sur 
l’histoire, la langue et les doctrines de l’epitre aux Hebreux nous degagerons 
les caracteres suivants. L’ecrivan de l’epitre etait Juif [his reason for this 
seems to be the writer’s familiarity with the LXX!], cretien, de la generation 
sub-apostolique, et connaissait bien les saintes Ecritures; il etait disciple de 
saint Paul et avait lu attentivement les epitres pauliennes; peut-etre meme 
avait-il re<pu directement les enseignments de l’apotre. II connaissait peut- 
6 tre le troisieme evangile, les Actes des Apotres et la premiere epitre de saint 

1 Cf. C. Schmidt, T.U. , XXIV, 1. 

2 Zahn, G.N.T.K . 2 (1890), pp. 5 f. Jacquier, Le Nouveau Testament dans Veglise 
(Paris, 1911), I, 189 f. 

3 Jacquier, Histoire des livres du Nouveau Testament, IIP, 246-79; I 8 (1908), 448, 
45 P 485- 

4 Jacquier, III, 281; Harnack, G.A.L. Chron., I (1897), 463. 


64 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


Pierre [his reason for this is the striking similarity of the two epistles, priority 
being conceded to the first Peter on account of its name]. Pour les ecrits de 
Philon, c’est plus douteux; cependent il a subi les memes influences que lui et 
son education a ete plutot alexandrine que palestinienne. 

This description would fit the author of I Peter quite as well. Of the 
two epistles Jacquier says (III, 280): “Bien qu’on puisse supposer que 
la meme langue chretienne etait cummune aux deux evrivains, les ressem- 
blances sont trop nombreuses pour qu’on ne soit pas oblige d’admettre 
que saint Clement s’est inspire de la premiere epitre de saint Pierre.” 

It would take us too far away from our theme to pursue this com¬ 
parison of I Peter, Hebrews, and I Clement, but a reading of the three 
epistles will reveal such striking resemblances in thought, language, 
and purpose that we are tempted to think that if they had not the same 
author, their authors were in familiar intercourse. The language, 
especially of I Peter and I Clement, is so teasingly similar, yet not iden¬ 
tical, the thought and purpose so identical, yet slightly different in expres¬ 
sion, that different authors could hardly have known each other’s 
minds so perfectly and have expressed each other’s thought so precisely 
without copying the identical words. Compare Heb. 13:7, 17, 24, 
with I Pet. 5:15, and I Clem. 1:3; 63:3; the oft recurring doxology: 
I Pet. 4:11; 5:11; I Clem. 13:21; 64, end; 65:2; Heb. 13:21; the 
church and hierarchy, authority and discipline, centering in Rome, 
where Peter planted the faith with his blood: Heb., 5:12 f.; I Pet. 
5:13; I Clem. 1:1; 5:3-7; 44:2-4. Obviously some great churchman 
is coaxing on the Roman community, reminding it that it has “to be 
taught,” when it “ought to be teaching others” (Heb. 5:12); and in 
the same style and tone the response comes (I Pet. 1:1) “to the elect 
(churches) of the dispersion” from “their coelect church in Babylon” 
(Rome, I Pet. 5:9): “to honor all men, to love the brotherhood, to fear 
God, to honor the king” (I Pet. 2:17). Read in the echo of the 
Ephesian prophet’s ravings against the “Beast” and “the Harlot of 
Babylon,” these words have a telling significance. “In fine,” it pleads 
with them to be “all of one mind, sympathetic, fraternal, kind, modest, 
humble; not rendering evil for evil, nor curse for curse, but rather 
blessing, for to this they are called, to inherit a blessing” (3:9); that if 
“doing good they suffer patiently, it will be pleasing to God: for to 
this they are called; for Christ suffered for us, leaving them an example 
to follow, who committed no sin, in whose mouth no guile was found; 
who when cursed did not curse back, when he suffered he did not threaten, 
but surrendered himself to the one who judged him according to law 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


65 


(dikaids)” (2:21-24). It is “the Church of God resident at Rome” 
(I Clem. 1:1), following “the good apostles,” Peter and Paul (5:3-6), 
reprimanding the other churches for disorderliness or impatience under 
trial, mellowing the rebuke out of consideration for the afflicted, yet 
speaking with no uncertain meaning and authority, authority based, 
then as ever since, upon the Roman bishop’s succession to Peter, the 
Prince of the Apostles. 

The very title of I Peter is significant, though not much weight 
can be rested on it, for Polycarp certainly knew the epistle (cf. Pol. 

1. 3 with I Pet. 1:8; Pol. 1. 3: I Pet. 1:12; Pol. 2. 13. 21; 5. 3: I Pet. 

2. 11), and quoted it six times without name. The writer, however, as 
the epistle now reads, with the introduction and conclusion, plainly 
pretends to be St. Peter, the apostle, in precisely the same way that the 
author of II Peter does. Compare the reference in I Peter (5:14) to 
“my son Mark,” with the reference in II Peter (3:15) to “our dearest 
brother Paul.” The absence in Hebrews and I Clement of such attempts 
to identify the author would alone make them suspicious in I Peter. 
Could they have escaped Polycarp had they been in the copies he used ? 
It would seem reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the name of Peter 
attached itself to this Epistle some time between Polycarp’s writing to 
the Philippians in Trajan’s time (ca. no?) and the writing of II Peter, 
which could not have been much before 200 a . d ., and probably, since 
it is not mentioned, after the Muratorian Canon (200 a . d .). 

This II Peter is the one Petrine writing that has unconcealably an 
axe to grind. The writer is painfully anxious to be identified with him 
to whom the Lord Jesus foretold his death, and he is certain that his 
death is near, and he is in haste to make sure that they will have a 
record of his death (II Pet. 1:14-15). He is going to begin right away 
to admonish them (1:12). He reminds them he has not followed 
“learned fables,” but “the power ( dynamis ) and manifestation (parou- 
sian) of our Lord Jesus Christ; having been an initiate (epoptai ) of his 
greatness (1:16-18), in the Transfiguration.” “And we have this very 
firm prophetic treatise (propheticoyi logon [the Apocalypse of Peter ?]), to 
which you would do well to attend, as to a torch lighting your way 
through a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises 
in your hearts; understanding this first of all that no prophecy of Scripture 
comes by private interpretation. For prophecy was never given at 
human demand but holy men of God spoke inspired of the Holy Spirit” 
(1:19-21). How anxious he is that they accept “ this prophetic treatise” 
which he is recommending as the inspired word of God! Then he goes 


66 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


on to warn them against false prophets, takes a generous piece out of the 
Epistle of Jude, rather harshly stigmatizes certain heretics, and continues 
(3:1 ff.): “Behold this second Epistle I write to you.” He wants to be 
sure they identify him with the writer of I Peter. Evidently, then, 
there is already an epistle current under the name of Peter. Note the 
implied time in 3:4: “Where is the promise of his coming? Since 
the fathers died , everything goes on as from the beginning of creation.” 
He seems to refer to some writing in 3:1-2; and indicates that the 
purpose of this second epistle is “that I may arouse your sincere mind; 
that you may be mindful of the words I have already spoken ( proeire- 
menon rhematon) from the holy Prophets and your Apostles’ command 
from the Lord and Savior.” This reference to “ word from the Prophets ” 
and “the Lord’s command of the Apostles” would quite well apply to 
the Preaching of Peter. 

The Second Epistle of Peter 1 is too well acquainted with “all the 
Epistles of Paul” (3:16) and other Christian literature to be very early, 
and its introduction of the “Acts of Peter,” if that is what is meant by 
“the record of his death,” would indicate about the year 200 a.d. as 
the date of writing. 

From the foregoing discussion it seems that the basis of the recognized 
relation between these old Petrine writings is the Petrine tradition of 
the Roman church; that this tradition lay behind the three great epistles 
of the late first century—Hebrews, I Peter, and I Clement; that it 
gave authority and recommendation to the Preaching of Peter; that it 
gave the occasion for or at least embodied the Apocalypse of Peter 
early in the second century; that it was invoked late in the second 
century by the Docetic Gospel of Peter; that it was often recast in the 
ramifications of the Acts of Peter; that the promulgation of one edition 
of these Acts was the occasion of the Second Epistle of Peter about the 
end of the second century, which ingeniously combines all these writings 
to commend itself and the Acts it is promulgating; that the First Epistle 
of Peter was, like Hebrews and I Clement, anonymously written, but 
got the name of Peter attached to it between Polycarp and II Peter. 

To trace this Petrine tradition farther back we must investigate its 
connection with the Peter-Mark tradition and the provenance of the 
Gospel of Mark. 

1 Cf. G. Wohlenberg, Petrusbrief und Judasbrief (Zahn’s Kommentar zur N.T. , 
XV), 1 and 2, 1915. Spitta, Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas , 
Halle, 1885. 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


67 


There are varying traditions about Mark (see Acta Sanctorun xi. 346 
ff.)* Jerome ( De vir. iii. 8), says: “Mortuus est octavo Neronis anno 
et sepultus Alexandriae.” This is probably, as usually, nothing better 
than an amplification of Eusebius’ remark ( H.E. ii. 16. 24) which says 
that Mark was succeeded in that year by Anianus as bishop of Alexandria. 
The Acta Marti and the Chronicon Pascale say he was dragged to death. 
The Roman Martyrology commemorates him as a martyr, on April 25, 
at Alexandria. A later tradition transfers his relics to Venice. He is 
first connected with Alexandria by Epiphanius ( Haer . 51.6) and Eusebius 
{H.E. ii. 16. 24). Origen and Clement make no allusion to any connec¬ 
tion between Mark and Alexandria, which is a very strong argumentum 
ex silentio. Could it be that Mark’s connection with Alexandria was 
effected through the Petrine Tradition ? It has been noted with Jacquier 
that there is a strong undercurrent of Alexandrine thought and lan¬ 
guage in the three Epistles—Hebrews, I Peter, and Clement—for which 
Jacquier accounts by supposing that Clement's education was Alex¬ 
andrine. The close relation of these Epistles with Clement makes this 
possibility tremendously important for our investigation of the place 
of origin of the K.P., which all indications seem to trace to Alexandria. 
The same Petrine tradition which connected Mark with Peter, or Peter 
with Mark, in Rome, functioned in a similar manner at Alexandria. 1 
The tradition appears in several forms. In substance it runs: when 
Peter was preaching in Rome, his hearers asked Mark, who had been 
Peter’s companion and interpreter, to put into writing for them what 
the apostle had preached. The result was the Gospel of Mark. This 
happened, “praedicante Petro evangelium palam Romae,” according 
to a supposed work of Clement of Alexandria {Adumbrationes in I 
Petri) quoted by Eusebius {H.E. vi. 14). According to Irenaeus {Adv. 
haer. 3. 1) the writing was done “after the departure (exodon) of these” 
—Peter and Paul, apparently meaning their death. Papias, quoted by 
Eusebius {H.E. iii. 39. 15), says he learned from “the Presbyter” that 

1 Chrysostom {Horn, in Mt. 3) says Mark wrote in Egypt. This is probably an 
erroneous interpretation of the tradition recorded by Eusebius {H.E. ii. 16): “Mark 
went to Egypt and there preached the Gospel he had written, and himself founded the 
first Christian community in Alexandria. So great was the number of men and 
women first converted who led a chaste and strict life that finally Mark’s companion 
and helper praised in writing their diligence, community life, festivities, and the whole 
manner of their life.” In the following chapter, Eusebius dwells at length upon Philo 
and his Therapeutae. This mistaking of Philo for a companion of Mark and the 
Therapeutae for Christians by the “Father of Church History” is remarkable. 


68 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


“Mark, having been Peter’s interpreter, wrote carefully what he remem¬ 
bered (not however in order) was said and done by the Lord, for he had 
neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterwards, as I said, 
Peter as much as was needed confirmed the teaching.” What seems to 
have happened was that the Gospel of Mark appeared in Rome shortly 
after the death of Peter, and that Mark was the authority for its correct¬ 
ness, and through Mark it was connected with Peter. See Bacon 
(Is Mark a Roman Gospel ?, p. 39): 

Either, then, this primitive Gospel [Markl must have emanated from some 
center of very great authority and importance with or without the important 
sanction of an alleged derivation from Peter; or we are at a loss to account for 
the dominant position it acquired in every region of the early church to which 
our knowledge extends. Such an authoritative center of emanation might 
be Rome .... Jerusalem .... Antioch. But Antioch, like Ephesus and 
Jerusalem, has a Gospel of its own, and yet uses Mark. 

Further he says (p. 45), after remarking that the Jerusalem church 
preferred traditional teaching to writing: 

The result was that the first widely circulated Gospels, properly so-called, 
were Greek, though they rest on a Semitic foundation. The Aramaic com¬ 
positions of which we have actual knowledge through surviving fragments and 
reports by the Fathers are without exception later than the Greek and based 
upon them. 

The prominence of Peter in early Christian tradition, art, and 
literature certainly justifies this appeal to his authority as the source 
of the first written Gospel; and the intimate relation of Mark to Peter 
would substantiate the probability that this first Gospel linked up with 
Peter’s preaching through Mark; and the death of Peter in Rome and 
the abundant documentary evidence of Mark’s presence there, would 
designate Rome as the place where Mark’s Gospel appeared. The Acts 
of the Apostles narrates much concerning Peter in Jerusalem and 
Palestine after the crucifixion. When delivered from prison by the 
angel, according to Acts (12:12) he goes “to the house of Mary the 
mother of John, who is called Mark, where many were gathered, and 
praying,” and tells them (12:17) how “the Lord led him out of prison, 
and said: ‘Tell James and the brethren these things.’ And going out 
he went to another place.” Barnabas and Saul came to Jerusalem, 
apparently about this time (Acts 12:25), with alms sent from Antioch 
to relieve the poor at Jerusalem apparently during the famine “which 
occurred under Claudius” (Acts 11:28-30). This date is generally 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


69 


supposed in church tradition to be 42 a.d., or twelve years after the 
crucifixion. That the Acts of the Apostles purposely holds the apostles 
in Jerusalem for “twelve years,” even when “all are dispersed . . . . 
except the apostles” (Acts 8:1), is significant (cf. K.P. VI). That Peter 
preached in Pontus, etc. (I Pet. 1:1), that he was in Antioch seven years, 
in Rome twenty-five, and was martyred under Nero, a.d. 67, are tradi¬ 
tions more or less contradictory, and do not concern us here. That 
Peter preached in Palestine and Syria is told us by the Acts; that he was 
martyred in Rome there is abundant evidence. That Mark was with 
Peter is, in Bacon’s opinion, supported by Acts, chapters 10-12; 13:13; 
15:38; Col. 4:10; Gal. 2:10. Cf. also Philemon 24; I Pet. 5:i4- 1 

1 After writing the above, the writer has made the acquaintance of Professor 
S. J. Case’s very ingenious hypothesis of two main questions at issue between the 
three so-called parties of the early Christian church, which throws helpful light upon 
the Petrine tradition and our problems. According to Professor Case’s hypothesis, 
the question at issue in Gal. 2:1-10 was the admission of gentile converts to Christi¬ 
anity without circumcision. In the Antiochene community, composed so largely of 
gentile converts, there was no difficulty in doing this, for the simple reason that it was 
the only reasonable thing to do. However, certain zealots of the law from Jerusalem 
started disturbance, and Paul and Barnabas, accompanied by Mark, taking Titus 
as a test case, went up to Jerusalem to have an understanding with James and the rest 
“who seemed to be something” (Acts 15:2; 12:25; Gal. 2:2-3). This was about 
the time of the famine, mentioned in Acts 11:28, under Claudius, and the death of 
Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23; 44 a.d.); which event may also account for Peter’s 
liberation from prison (Acts 12:7-17). The “other place” (Acts 12:17), to which 
Peter went after obtaining his freedom from prison, was probably Antioch, where 
we find him in Gal. 2:11. By this time a new problem was in the making at Antioch, 
solved there in the same reasonable and only way as the one about circumcision had 
been solved, namely of Jewish Christians eating with uncircumcised converts to 
Christianity. Even Peter, “before certain ones came from James, ate with gentiles. 
But when they had come he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were 
of the circumcision. And to his simulation other Jews also agreed, so that even 
Barnabas was led into that simulation. But when I saw,” says Paul, “that they 
were not walking straight to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence 
of all: ‘If you, though you are a Jew, live like a heathen ( ethnikos ), and not like a 
Jew, how do you compel Gentiles to judaize?’” (Gal. 2:11-14). This was the real 
cause of separation between Barnabas and Paul (Acts 15:39). Paul uncompromisingly 
contended for Christian fellowship between Jewish and gentile converts, even at table. 
Peter and Barnabas and Mark (Acts 15:37), giving in to the demand of James and the 
Jerusalem community, refrained from such fellowship at table. 

However, the rupture was not a violent one, and the apostles continued their 
friendly co-operation, only agreeing to allow each his own field of labor. From this 
time on, Paul leaves Antioch and Syria to Peter, and shifts his own base of missionary 
operations to Greece or Macedonia. Peter continued his preaching down the coast 
of Syria. It was during this time that he had such experience as that related in 


7 o 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


The writing of Mark was probably first known as “the memoirs” 
(, apomnemoneumata ) as Justin apparently quotes it {Dial. 106. 3). The 
word evangelion was in common use, meaning “a reward for good news,” 
or “ the good news ” itself. Its use by Paul had given it a special meaning 
as the good news of Jesus’ preaching, Possibly it was Mark’s use of 
the word (1:15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9; 16:15) that connected 
it with the written “memoirs.” 


Acts, chapter 10, the Cornelius incident. The experience convinced him that Paul 
was right in insisting on table fellowship between Jewish and gentile Christians, and 
himself began to defend the practice. At Jerusalem, “they who were of the circum¬ 
cision called him to account saying, ‘Why did you go in and eat with uncircumcised 
men?’” (Acts 11:3). 

The issue of this discussion was probably not so smooth as Acts, chapter n, 
makes it. Nor is it likely that Paul was there. There is, however, no reason to think 
the rupture was so complete as some have contended. Peter and James doubtless 
continued friendly co-operation, just as Peter and Paul had after the affair at Antioch. 
But there seems to have been a similar separation between James and Peter, Peter 
leaving Jerusalem and Judea to James as Paul had left Antioch and Syria to Peter. 

This hypothesis helps us also with the chronology of Peter’s life. If the date of 
Paul and Barnabas’ visit to Jerusalem (Acts 15:2; Gal. 2:1) was in the reign of 
Claudius (Acts 11:28) and before Herod’s death (Acts 12:23), that is, 41-44 a.d., 
and time, say a year or so, is allowed to elapse between this event and Peter’s arrival 
in Antioch (Gal. 2:11), and again, time for Peter’s experience of such as the Cornelius 
event and his change of attitude toward the table-fellowship problem, the discussion 
of this problem, as related in Acts 11:3, would fall about the year 50. After this 
date, then, Peter, in this hypothesis, is no longer in Jerusalem, but at Antioch or in 
Syria. This agrees with the tradition which makes Peter the first bishop of Antioch. 
It would also account for the strange action of Paul, returning from his second mis¬ 
sionary journey, “saluting the church” at Caesarea, and going on to Antioch, without 
going to Jerusalem (Acts 18:22). This must have been not long after 50 a.d., allowing 
time for the events of Acts 15:40-18, 22; 18:23-20, 38; 19:10, the Corinthian, Roman, 
and other correspondence. It is to be noted that, when he later went to Jerusalem, 
Paul was “gladly received” by the Jerusalem community (Acts 21:17), though 
“they were all zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20). No mention is made of Peter at 
this time, which would indicate that he was not in Jerusalem. After Paul had been in 
custody at Caesarea two years (Acts, chaps. 24, 25) Felix succeeded Fortius Festus. 
From Josephus FI. (Ant. xx. 8. 9) it seems probable that this was early in the reign of 
Nero (54-68); FelLx, who had been appointed by Claudius (Jos. Ant. xx. 7.1), was accused 
by Roman nobles and brought to Rome by Nero, “and he had certainly been brought 
to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his 
brother Pallas, who was at that time held in the greatest honor by him” (Ant. xx. 8. 9.). 
The events related by Tacitus (An. 13.54; Hist. 5. 9) would seem to have been after 
this; hence Josephus says, “at that time.” However, it is generally thought that 
the change of Felix for Festus took place about 60 a.d. The next two years (Acts 
28:30) Paul was in Rome. Writing to the Colossians he sends the greetings of “ Mark, 



COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


7i 


3. The Sermons of Peter; Kerygmata, Clementina, etc .—The associa¬ 
tion of the name of Clement of Rome with Peter was doubtless the source 
of the extensive Clementine Literature. The legend that Clement 
became Peter’s companion on his missions in Syria, and, at Peter’s 
instruction, wrote down his sermons and sent them to James, bishop 
of Jerusalem, formed the nucleus around which grew a variegated 
romance embodying “Sermons of Peter” that bear a generally recog- 


the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received command that if he come 
to you you are to receive him” (Col. 4:10). Does this mean that Mark contemplated a 
visit to Colossa ? May it not only mean that the Colossians had been put on their 
guard against those who differed from Paul, as Mark had in the matter of table fellow¬ 
ship, and that Paul wished, now that Mark agreed with him, to tell the Colossians to 
receive him should he ever come among them ? Or are we to suspect here another 
recommendation of the Roman “Mark” who appears as “my son Mark” in I Pet. 
5:13? Anyhow, there is no evidence that Mark ever went to Colossa, but more 
reason to believe that he remained in Rome. The mention of his kinship with Barn¬ 
abas, and the mention of Clement (Phil. 4. 3), if it is the same Clement who, according 
to tradition, wrote to the Corinthians later, may be the base of the Clementine legend 
linking Clement with Peter through Barnabas. If this Mark is the same “John 
Mark” who was once with Paul and Barnabas, and whose mother Mary’s house 
(Acts 12:12) was a gathering place of Christians in Jerusalem and well known to 
Peter, the friendship of Peter and Mark, which Papias has recorded, may not rest 
only on that writer’s erroneous reading of I Pet. 5:13, as Bacon has strangely thought. 
Indeed, there is room for doubt, considering Polycarp’s use of I Peter without naming 
it, that it was now circulating under the name of Peter, and possibly lacked this (5:13) 
passage when Papias wrote. 

What Peter was doing and where he went during the time which elapsed between 
his leaving Jerusalem, probably about 50 a.d., and his martyrdom in Rome, which 
tradition dates 67 a.d., there seems no way to learn. Not much can be made of the 
date 67 a.d. It is only a little sum in addition: 12 years in Jerusalem plus 25 in Rome. 
The other seven years at Antioch, and it is not said how many in Pontus, Cappadocia, 
etc., would make Peter antedate Christ. However, the evidence is too abundant to 
question the fact that Peter died in Rome, and that this happened under Nero. 

If the expression “I am of Cephas” means that there was a Petrine faction at 
Corinth, it would point to Peter’s having been there, as Paul and Apollos, mentioned 
in the same connection, certainly had (I Cor. 1:12; Acts 19:1). Even if the First 
Epistle of Peter was not written by him, as it certainly was not, there may yet be some 
historic reason for the pretension that Peter had preached in “Pontus, Galatia, 
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bythinia” (I Pet. 1:1). “The Jew of Pontic race, Aquila,” 
whom Paul met at Corinth coming from Rome, expelled by Claudius (Acts 18:2), 
may be an indication, however slight, that Aquila had accompanied Peter from Pontus 
to Rome. There was some reason why Paul refrained from going to Rome, and it 
was probable that some apostle, such as Peter, was there (Rom. 1:13; 15:20). But 
there was also some reason why he wrote to the Romans at all. Chapter 15 would 
seem to imply that there was a problem about food. The long list of salutations at 



72 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


nized resemblance with the K.P. and may represent an elaborated 
form of what is referred to as the “Kerygmata” or sermons of Peter 
which are simply unknown, and it is the merest conjecture that they 
may have once existed in written form and perhaps were one of the 
sources used by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. M. H. Waitz 1 
has made a thorough analysis of the Clementine Homilies and Recogni¬ 
tions and concluded that the source document (which will be referred to 


the end of the epistle, if it belongs to this epistle, may mean that Paul had made the 
acquaintance of many Romans at Philippi, or elsewhere on his missions, and they 
were entreating him to come to Rome, and he saw that he did have some right to go 
there, as he was the Apostle of the Gentiles. Possibly he also vaguely decried the 
coming ascendancy of the Roman church, and the union of his and Peter’s work, 
which was accomplished a few decades after their death. 

The legend of Peter’s going to Rome to refute Simon the Magician is too varied 
to be of much value, though here again there must be some fire where there is so much 
smoke. Doubtless “Simon Magas” is more or less a convenient personification for 
the typical magician, and the practice of magic, of which the Gospel of Mark is 
evidence, at Rome, if Mark is a Roman Gospel, would of itself be sufficient grounds 
for bringing Peter there in legend. But the legend is just as closely, perhaps even 
more closely, bound up with Syrian connections—Caesarea, Tripolis, Antioch, etc. 
Matthew, the Syrian Gospel, while not traditionally related to Peter as Mark is, 
nevertheless is the one which promoted, or at least recorded, Peter’s exaltation, thus 
affording additional evidence of Peter’s prominence in Syria. May it not be that the 
Roman church, after the death of Peter there, cherished his memory and claimed his 
authority for its Gospel, Mark, and that Antioch, putting forth its own claim, extolled 
Peter in its Gospel, Matthew, and that later Rome and Antioch made common issue 
for their mutual ends against Jerusalem and Ephesus, till, after the fall of the Jerusalem 
church (135 a.d.), Ephesus united with Rome and Antioch, perhaps through the 
instrumentality of such men as Ignatius and Polycarp, and its Gospel, John, was 
joined to the Antiochene Matthew and Roman Mark, with the universalizing Luke 
added to make the triumphant Fourfold Gospel, promulgated and held together by the 
Lucan Acts ? Would not this suggest a favorable opportunity for the interpolation, 
if they are interpolations, of such texts as Mt. 16:16-18; Jo. chap. 21; L., chaps. 
22, 32; and Mk. 16:9-20 ? It would make the Roman Christian letters of Domitian’s 
reign very opportune, and create a veritable demand for the Lucan Acts, the Ignation 
Letters, and Clement to the Corinthians. 

Though we know regrettably so little about Alexandria at this period, there is 
doubtless history behind the legendary connection of Alexandria with Rome, through 
the Petrine-Markan tradition. This question will come up for our consideration 
later, but for the present it should be remarked that there is sufficient Alexandrine 
element in the Roman literature of this time, to indicate that the Petrine tradition is 
also functioning in Alexandria. 

*On the Clementine Literature see Bardenhewer, G.A.L., 1,351 ff., and M. H. 
Waitz, “Die Pseudoclementinen Homilien und Rekognitionen” (Leipzig, 1904), in 
T.U., XXV, 4. The text used in this dissertation is M.P.G.L. 



COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


73 


in the following discussion as K.K.) was written at a time when the 
world was concerned with such problems as the origin of the cosmos, 
and was convinced that a solution was looked for in vain from philosophy 
and magic, and to be found only in “the true Word or Logos” (H . i. 13; 
R. 1. 10); “The true Prophet” (H. 1. 19; R. 1. 16); “the Prophet of 
truth” ( H . 1. 20; R. 1. 17); “the prophetic announcement” ( H . 1. 21; 
R. 1. 18). Man must believe in the true Prophet ( H . 1. 19; R. 1. 16), 
for he has a divine revelation ( H . 3. 20); which teaches belief in one God 
( H . 2. 12; 12. 23; R. 2. 36, 40, 60). “In the preaching of Peter on the 
journey from Caesarea to Tripolis, the writer takes up the polemic 
against popular beliefs of heathendom, belief in demons and gods, from 
which he turns to belief in one God and Baptism (H . 7-11; R. 4-6) 
just as a catechist might prepare a catechumen for baptism” (p. 49). 
“So gibt sich die Schrift als eine Apologie bezw. Polemik des 
Christentums gegen Haeresie und Heidentum, im weitesten sinn des 
Wortes” (p. 50). He summarizes the contents of the supposed original 
document (p. 52), in which he thinks there were no Judaizing tendencies 
and is of the opinion that it was written in Rome about 150 a.d. (p. 61). 
The sources of this original document (pp. 77 ff.) he thinks were the 
K.K. The H.R. attained their present form 220-30 a.d. (p. 366). 

While it seems the Clementina are the outgrowth of the same 
tradition of Peter’s preaching which supplied the Acts of the Apostles 
and the K.P. with material, that original element has been lost beyond 
recovery or recognition in the mass of shifting romance which has reached 
us. The passages which seem more likely to contain remnants of the 
original kerygma are H. 10. 16; R. 5. 20; H. 17. 7; H. 10. 9; R. 5.30; 
H. 10, 25. 

4. Other Fragments, more or less probable. —Frag. XI 1 very probably 
belongs to the K.P., “Doctrina” being really a good translation of 

1 Frag. XI, Orig. Be princ. praef. 8. “Appellatio autem asomaton, id est incor- 
porei, non solum apud multos alios verumetiam apud nostras Scripturas est inusitata et 
incognita. Si vero quis velit nobis proferre ex illo libello qui Petri Doctrina appellatur 
ubi Salvator videtur ad discipulos dicere: Non sum daemonium incorporeum? primo 
respondendum est ei, quoniam ille liber inter ecclesiasticos non habetur, et ostenden- 
dum quia neque Petri est ipsa Scriptura, neque alterius cujusdam, qui Spiritu Dei 
fuerit inspiratus.” Cf. Dob., pp. 82 and 134. 

Cf. Ignatius ad Smyrn. 3. 1-2, certainly not his own words. Cf. Jerome De 
vir. illustr. iii. 16, and Klostermann (Apoc., II, Ev. 2, p. 8), who thinks this passage 
belongs to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Also Preuschen, Anteleg., I, 8. 

Cf. the Apocalypse of Peter II, Copt. (Schmidt, T.U., VIII, 1, p. 2): “The Lord 
came to us: ‘Come and .... you, Peter, who thrice denied me .... do you still 
deny me ? ’ We ran to him, though in our hearts we doubted that it was true. He said 


74 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


kerygma, better in fact than “ Praedicatio.” Frag. XII. * 1 This “libellus ” 
is doubtless the same one that Origen (De princ. praef. 8) calls “Doctrina 
Petri,” and with the same great probability is to be identified with 
the K.P. Frag. XIII 2 has no claim to kinship with the K.P. either in 
name or resemblance. “Epistula” cannot by any stretch of the imagina¬ 
tion be construed to mean “Kerygma.” “Nolite judicare fratres 
vestros” would sound very strange in an apologetic like the K.P. Frag. 
XIV 3 and XV 4 are very like the K.P. fragments which Clement quotes 
by name, and would fit in an apologetic of the character the K.P. appar¬ 
ently is. The name “didaskalia Petrou” is apparently not a mistake 
for kerygma , occurring as it does more than once, nor could the Latin 
“Doctrina” intervene between the Kerygma and Gregory Nazianzen. 
The difficulty of accounting for this change of name throws a doubt 
upon these two fragments, which has not yet been satisfactorily removed. 
They are surely older than Peter of Alexandria (+310), who for the rest 

to us: ‘ Why do you still doubt and disbelieve ? I am He that said to you, regarding 
my flesh, and death and resurrection, that you know I am He. You, Peter, put 
your finger in the nail wound in my hand; you, Thomas, put your finger in the 

lance wound in my side; and you, Andrew, touch my feet and see that you.We 

answered him: ‘We have known in truth that .... in the flesh. 

1 Frag. XII. Orig. Horn. X in Lev. (Delarue, II, 246): “ Sed est alia adhuc religiosa 
(scl.jejunandi ratio) cujus laus quorundam apostolorum letteris praedicatur: invenimus 
enim in quodam libello ab apostolis dictum: beatus est qui etiam jejunat pro eo ut 
alat pauperum. Hujus jejunium valde acceptum est apud Deum et revera digne 
satis; imitatur enim ilium qui animum suam posuit pro fratribus suis.” 

Cf. Pastor Hermae. Sim. v. 3. 6; Aristides Apol. 15 (Syr.); Ep. Barn. 3:3; Tertul. 
Dejejun. adv. psych, c. 13; Dob., pp. 84 and 135.. 

3 Frag. XIII. Aptatus De sehism. Donat, i. 5 ( M.P.L. , XI, 895): “Cum in 
epistula Petri apostoli legimus: nolite per opinionem judicare fratres vestros.” Dob., 
pp. 104 and 134. 

3 Frag. XIV. Greg. Naz. Ep. 20 ad Caer. frat. ii. 19: “for a weeping soul is near 
to God, says somewhere the wonderful Peter.” Cf. Oral. 17. 5 (i. 321); Elias Cret. 
M.P.G., 36. 395; Dob., p. 81, n. 1; Robinson, pp. 109 and 134. 

4 Frag. XV. Leontius Hiera (Lequien, II, 475, E. titl. 8 (V): R. fol. 167; litt. 
E. titl. 44; H. fol. 284, a. 1): “From the teachings of Peter: He is rich who has 
mercy on many and remembers that he has to give an account to God; for God gives 
all things to all men from His own riches. Understand that you are rich in order that 
you may be able to do good, taking freely of that which you possess. Remember 
what you have earned for yourself will be left to others; be careful of what belongs 
to others. Remember all things are equal before God, and no one will be poor.” 
Cf. Greg. Naz. Or at. 14 (al. 16. ed. Maur., I, 274) Dob., pp. no and 134. 





COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


75 


has no claim at all to them. Frag. XVI 1 lies under the same cloud as 
the two preceding fragments, and the difficulty is enhanced by the 
presence of “ Alexandras ” after Peter’s name. Hilgenfeld has ably 
defended the fragment against Dobschuetz, and shown that the word 
later crept into the manuscript. Whatever the difficulty be of explaining 
the change of kerygma into didaskalia, if it was but a change of title, 
it seems to the present writer evident that K.P. VIII lies behind this 
passage. Frag. XVII 2 is too brief to help us much in placing it where 
it belongs. It seems to have nothing in common with the K.P. but the 
name of '‘Blessed Peter,” the commonest name in church history. 
Frag. XVIII 3 is surely related to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. 
What this “Pauli praedicatio” could be, is a mystery. In spite of 
Hilgenfeld’s ingenious effort to identify it with our K.P., it is impossible 
for us to agree with him. The allusion to Peter and Paul in Rome is 
doubtless a tradition incorporated in some form in the many “Acts” 
of Peter or Paul. Frag. XIX 4 might link up fairly well with K.P. VI 

1 Frag. XVI. Leontius Hiera (Lequien, II, 336, Dob., p. 118): “Saint Peter of 
Alexandria’s teachings: ‘Miserable me! They have not learned that God sees the 
mind and hears the soul’s voice. I confess my sins to myself saying: God is merciful, 
and I did not cease at all but all the more acknowledged my sins and prolonged my 
sacrifices to God.’” 

2 Frag. XVII. Oecom. Com. ad Jacob, v (op. II, 478): “And there is among 
you a saying of the blessed Peter: One (alone) living the community life and one 
(alone) living pure is useless and fruitless.” Cf. Dob., pp. 118 and 134. 

3 Frag. XVIII. Pseudo-Gyp. De rebapt. 17 (Hortel, III, go): “Est autem 
adulterini hujus, immo internecini baptismatis. Si qui alius auctor, turn etiam 
quidam ab eisdem ipsis haereticis propter hunc eundem errorem confictus liber, qui 
inscribitur Pauli Praedicatio, in quo libro contra omnes Scripturas et de peccato 
proprio confitentem invenies Christum, qui solus omnino nihil deliquit, et ad accipien- 
dum Joannis baptisma quasi invitum a matre sua Maria esse compulsum, item cum 
baptizaretur, ignem super aquam esse visum, quod in evangelio nullo est scriptum et 
post tanta tempora Petrum et Paulum post conlationem evangelii in Hierusalom et 
mutuam cogitationem et altercationem et rerum agendarum disputationem postremo 
in Urbe quasi tunc primum invicem sibi esse cognitos et quaedam alia hujusmodi 
absurde ac turpiter conficta, quae omnia in ilium librum invenies congesta.” Cf. Dob., 
p. 157. Zahn ( G.K ., II, 2. 2, p. 881) thinks this is from the Acts of Paul, with which 
he identifies the passage in Clem. Strom, vi. 5. 42. Cf. note 1, p. 76. 

4 Frag. XIX. Lactantius Instit. div. iv. 21: “Futura aperuit illis omnia quae 
Petrus et Paulus Roma praedicaverunt et ea praedicatio in memoriam scripta per- 
mansit, in qua sein multa alia mira, turn etiam futurum esse dixerunt ut post breve 
tempus immitteret Deus regem, qui expugnaret Iudaeos et civitates eorum solo adae- 
quaret, ipsos autem fame sitique confectos obsideret; turn fore ut corporibus suorum 
vescerentur et consumerent se inviceus: postremo ut capti veniunt in manus hostium 


76 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


or VII or IX. But the pretentious “omnia” and “multa alia mira,” 
as well as the location “Romae” and the association of “Petrus et 
Paulus,” make this “praedicatio in memoriam scripta” very different 
from our K.P., in the other extant fragments in which there is no allu¬ 
sion to “ mira ” or Rome. Possibly the name Paul slipped into one expres¬ 
sion of Clement by sheer negligence, perhaps of a copyist, who was so 
used to writing the phase “as the apostle Paul says, “that he sleepily 
wrote it into this text (Dob., “Frag. XVIII” * 1 {Strom, vi. 5. 42 f.). This 
and Dob., “Frag. XIX” 2 are so clearly connected with the others in context 
that it is only with arbitrary violence that they can be separated. 

The Barlaam and Joasaph romance (see above), which was found to 
contain the Apology of Aristides, contains a number of passages which 
are strikingly similar to what is known of the K.P. Geffcken 3 calls our 
attention to several passages which are plainly not original with the 
writer of the romance. They are apologetic and may belong to the 
K.P., but the only apparent link is their proximity to Aristides’ Apology 
and the general trend of the romance, which would make it likely that 
the writer would use the K.P., were it available, and he seems to have 
had access to other such material, and is so preoccupied with thought 
congenial with K.P. and Egyptian atmosphere that the a priori proba¬ 
bility must be admitted in favor of identifying some of this B. J. apolo¬ 
getic material with our K.P. The romance begins thus: “The country 
called the land of the Indians is situated far from Egypt.” It then 


et in conspectu suo vexari acerbissime conjuges suos cernerent, violari ac prostitui 
virgines, diripi pueros, allidi parvulos, omnia denique igni ferroque vastari, captivos 
in perpetuum terris suis exterminari eo quod exultaverint super amantissimum et 
probatissimum Dei filium.” Cf. Dob., p. 131. 

1 Frag. XX. Clem. Strom, vi. 5.42 ff. This passage should be read in the context. 
He has been quoting freely from the Preaching of Peter, and without any indication of 
interruption says: “The Apostle Paul declares in the Preaching of Peter: ‘Take also 
the Greek books, read the Sibyl, that it may be clear there is one God and the future 
is coming to pass. Read also the Hyslaspes, and you will find many brilliant and wise 
things concerning the Son of God, how many kings paid their respect to Christ, hating 
him and those bearing his name and those believing on him, and his patience and his 
appearance. Behold in one word you have it. All the world and all things in the 
world, are they not from One? Is He not God?’ Therefore Peter says the Lord 
said to the apostles: ‘If anyone therefore of Israel, being converted, will believe on 
God through my name, his sins shall be forgiven. But after twelve years,”’ etc. 
Cf. Dob., p. 124. Hilgenfeld, Z.W.T., I (1893), 5 2 55 Zahn, G.N.T.K., II, 2, pp. 827 f. 

2 Frag. XXI. Dob., p. 126. 

3 Cf. Geffcken, Zwei gr. Apol., pp. 82, 316. 



COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


77 


describes the idolatry there, narrates its legendary conversion by the 
apostle Thomas, and in chapter v says: “Now when also in Egypt 
monasteries began to be founded and the multitude of monks increased” 
.... Christian monks went to India. There King Abenner was 
alarmed at the number of nobles who became monks, and issued a decree 
against Christianity. The story of his son’s, Prince Joasaph’s, con¬ 
version, is an adaptation of the life of Gautama Buddha. The monk 
Barlaam who converts the prince is the representative of Christianity 
and is made to utter, among other things, the argument which is recog¬ 
nized as the Apology of Aristides and other arguments which are here 
under consideration as possible K.P. fragments. 

5. Date. —It is clear that Origen knew less than Clement about the 
K.P., and that Clement knew only what he learned from his sources, or 
source , for apparently he used only one, and this one was apparently 
the same as the Psalm-Commentary which is always quoted together 
with the K.P. This is plainly seen in the Ecc. Proph. 58 quota¬ 
tion (see the context). “Les Exc. et Eel.,” says Collomp (p. 39), 
“contiennent les extraits d’un livre dont l’aspect, le charactere sont 
tres definis et particulier; les Stromates ont utilise plusieurs fois ce 
livre—et les Homelies Clementines connaissent une source indentique 
ou apparentee a lui.” He shows (pp. 41-46) that, though the author of 
the book cannot now be learned, it was not Theodotus, nor Pantenus 1 
nor probably any known author. Bousset 2 critically analyzing a similar 
passage of Clement, where he quotes the first Psalm, says: “Dies ganze 
Verfahren des Clemens findet nur dann seine Erklaerung, wenn wir 
annehmen duerfen, dass er an dieser Stelle eine ihm fertig vorliegende 
Erklaerung des ersten Psalms in den Zusammenhang einfuegt.” At all 
events it seems reasonable to conclude that the Psalm-Commentary 
used by Clement was in writing, and that it had used our K.P. as a source, 
and that Clement quotes the K.P. passage in the Psalm-Commentary 
context, though the quotation takes him away from his immediate 
train of thought. 

Clement was the first Christian writer of literature, in the sense that 
he is not forced to his task by the emergency of the moment, as Chris¬ 
tian writers before him had been, but wrote for the writing’s own sake, 

1 The authorship of this Psalm-Commentary is discussed by Collomp, pp. 141-46. 
He may be rather too positive in excluding the possibility of Pantenus. However, 
it is in any case a witness to the earlier existences of the Preaching, which it uses as 
a source. 

2 Cf. Bousset, p. 162. 



78 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


to preserve material that else would have perished. In his effort thus to 
save from oblivion the store of “Schulgut” that had been handed down 
from several generations of Christian teachers, who were in turn but the 
heirs of earlier Jewish and Greek teachers and scholars, Clement made 
a storehouse of his Stromateis. Bousset (pp. 235 ff.) analyzes the sources 
of Strom, v. 20. 1-55, 4 as follows: 

20, 3-21, 3 Aegypter; 21, 4-25, Hellener; 27, 1-31, 2 Pythagoraeer; 
31, 3-5, Barbaren; 32-40 Altes Testament; 41-43 Aegypter; 45-50 Hellener 

(und Pythagoraeer); 44-50 Barbaren; 51-54 Altes Testament.Jeden- 

falls hat auch dieser Abschnitt (v. 20-54) e i ne Geschichte hinter sich, die 
schliesslich bis in die juedische Apologetik zuruecklaeuft, ja darueber hinaus 
auf hellenistische (neupythagoraeischer) Quellen deutet, in denen das Thema 
der symbolischen Mysterienweisheit bei Griechen und Barbaren zuerst auf- 
getauscht sein wird. 

Even granting, with Bousset (pp. 263 f.), that Clement had in great part 
used a source which can best be characterized as Gnostic, we may still 
maintain that this source used other earlier sources, some of which 
were not Gnostic, as Collomp has plainly shown, and among these 
was our K.P. 

We arrive at a similar conclusion by following up Origen’s reference 
to Heracleon, who lived in the middle of the second century. That 
the K.P. was older than his work is evident. Nor does it necessarily 
follow that all his sources were tainted with his Valentinian gnosis. 

That Aristides used the K.P. is so universally admitted, and so 
evident, that reference need be made only to the discussion of Seeberg 1 
and others. Furthermore, the date of Aristides, 2 whether 124, 129, or 

1 Cf. Geffcken, Zwei gr. Apol., p. xxxi, and Seeberg, p. 216. 

2 The date of Aristides’ Apology has been the subject of much discussion. The 
principal reasons for holding that it was addressed to Hadrian are the following: 
Eusebius ( H.E. 4. 4) says: “Aristides .... left an apology for the faith which he 
addressed to Hadrian” (cf. also Chron. ad A. Abr. 2140). Eusebius certainly means 
Hadrian, about whom he is writing in both these places, and says: “Very many have 
this writing today.” The Greek apology is addressed “ Autokratori Kaisari Adrianoi.” 
The Arminian Fragment “To the Emperor Caesar Hadrian.” The only Syriac manu¬ 
script has two inscriptions, the first: “An apology which Aristides the philosopher 
made before Hadrian the king for the fear of God.” The reasons for holding that 
it was addressed to Antoninus Pius are the second inscription of the Syriac manuscript: 
“To Emperor Caesar Titus (?) Hadrian Antoninus Sebastian Eusebius, Gratianus, 
Aristides Athenian philosopher,’’and misty allusions to a certain Athenian of Antonine’s 
reign whom it is attempted to identify with the apologist. Hilgenfeld, Z.W.T., I 
(1893), 539 ) n - 2 ) has accused J. Rendel Harris {Apol. Aristides, 1891) and Ed. Hen- 
necke (Zahn, For. G.N.T.K., I, 41-126) of inserting the name “Titus, ” for which there 
is no manuscript authority. Egli ( Z.T.W. 36, I [1893], 100) calls attention to the 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


79 


140, is a matter of only relative importance, for it seems quite as probable 
that the Shepherd of Hernias, a contemporary of Aristides, or even of 
earlier date, quoted the K.P. * 1 There is much evidence that the K.P. 
was used by the epistle of Barnabas. 2 While the date of this epistle 
is disputed, there is much in favor of placing it in the reign of Nerva, 
which would throw the composition of K.P. in the first century. 

interesting similarity of names and events in Asia Minor during the reign of Antonine 
with those mentioned by Eusebius under Hadrian ( H.E . 4. 3b). During the pro¬ 
consulate of “Statius Quadratus” in Asia Minor, an “Autokrator” was in Syria 
and the orator “Aelius Aristides,” called the “Presbyter.” Statius Quadratus was 
proconsul of Asia Minor, 154-55. Antoninus Pius was in Syria during that time. 
Marcianus is mentioned in the Martyrdom of Polycarp , which Egli dates February 23, 
155 ( Z.W.T . [1882], pp. 227 f.). Hence there is reason to suspect that Eusebius 
confused Antonine with Hadrian, and brought Aristides too near to Quadratus; unless, 
indeed, Quadratus the apologist be the same as Quadratus, bishop of Athens after the 
martyr Publius, about 140 a.d. (Euseb. H.E. 4. 23. 3), whom Jerome ( De vir. iii. c. 19, 
4 Ep. 70, Magn. c. 4) identifies with the apologist. In this case the apologies of both 
Quadratus and Aristides would fall in the reign of Antonine. This depends, however, 
on a confusion, and if there is confusion anywhere it is quite reasonable to suspect that 
the long title of the Syriac manuscript of Aristides’ Apology has been confused with 
Justin’s. Compare the two. This is all the more probable inasmuch as it is contra¬ 
dicted by the Greek and Armenian and even the first Syriac title. 

1 The Shepherd of Hermas was probably written not all at one time, but is rather 
a collection of visions and meditations for some time before 150 a.d . The Muratorian 
Fragment says: “Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Hermas 
conscripsit, sedente (in) cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo fratre ejus.” 
Cf. Bard., G.A.R., I, 557 ff. For the text see F. X. Funk, Die apostolischen Vaeter 2 
(1906), pp. 144 ff. Seeberg (Zahn, For. G.N.T.K., V, 216) and Zahn ( G.N.T.K. , II, 
831; I, 920) think the K.P. was used by the author of the Shepherd. See also 
Hilg., N.T. extra canonen Recept., IV; Dob., p. 67: “mit dem Hirten des Hermas 

.... mannigfacher Anklaenge.In einigen Punkten duerfte das K.P. alter 

sein als der Hirt.” 

2 The so-called Epistle of Barnabas is dated by Harnack 130-31 a.d. on account 
of chap. 16: “The temple is destroyed by enemies; now the servants of the enemy 
themselves will rebuild it”; which he thinks refers to the destruction and rebuilding 
of the Jerusalem Temple during the Jewish war of that date. Funk understands 
the passage in chap. 16 to refer to the destruction of the Temple by Titus, and the 
rebuilding to refer to a “Spiritual temple,” 16: 10, which is plain from the context. 
The entire Epistle is far-fetched allegory. In 4:4-5, there is a mystic interpretation 
of Dan. 7:8, 24, applying the prophecy to the “eleventh king,” who will “humble 
three at one time,” whom Hilgenfeld and Funk take to mean Nerva (96-98). Cf. 
Bard., G.A.K., I, 87 ff., and literature there given. Harnack, G.A.L., II, 1, 140 ff; 
Funk, Kirchengeschichte, Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen , II, 77 ff. The text 
used in this dissertation is Funk’s. Dob., p. 67, says the K.P. “ist allem anschein 
nach spaeter als der gleichfalls Alexandrinischen Barnabas Brief, der freilich wohl 
in sehr fruehe Zeit (unter Vespasian ?) anzusetzen ist.” 




8 o 


THE PREACHING OF PETER 


The Fragments themselves contain nothing which would require a 
later date than ioo a.d. Indeed it is difficult to place their contents 
later than ioo a.d. There is no mention of ecclesiastical organization, 
or developed liturgy. Only “the twelve disciples, chosen apostles’’ 
appear. The “twelve years” of Jewish mission preceding the gentile 
mission, which has gone “into the whole world,” indicates a date when 
Christianity had begun to spread around the Mediterranean, and 
doubtless Jerusalem had been destroyed and the Jewish national hope 
had fallen, and the conversion of the Jews despaired of, and the Christian 
stood out as a “ third race, ” distinct alike from Jew and Greek. Baptism 
is not mentioned as an essential for becoming a Christian, and there is 
no thought of the Holy Ghost; from which it is reasonable to infer that 
neither the Johannine controversy nor the “Pneumatic” movement, 
if so we might designate that which is so prominent in the Acts of the 
Apostles, had yet reached the regions where the K.P. was written. 
Where was this ? 

6 . Place .—There were in Egypt about this time not less than a 
million Jews, more than in all Palestine. The K.P. was written where 
Jews were apparently as prominent as Greeks. The idolatry it opposes 
is typically Egyptian. The language it uses was certainly familiar in 
Egypt, if not characteristically Alexandrine. The Petrine tradition was 
shifting from Rome to Alexandria—or was the shifting in the opposite 
direction? Were Hebrews and I Peter written from Alexandria? 
It was there, doubtless, that the Sibyl 1 sang of Rome as “Babylon.” 
It was at Alexandria that the K.P. was quoted by the only three writers 
who may have known it at first hand or with certainty: Heracleon, 
Clement, and Origen. Probably, then, the place of the writing of the 
K.P. was Alexandria. 

-* i 

CONCLUSION 

From the foregoing study it seems reasonable to conclude that the 
Preaching of Peter is not an anti-Jewish polemic, as Garbe thought; 
nor a Judaeo-Christian Gnostic work, as Mayerhoff claimed; nor a 
remnant of The Preaching of Peter and Paul, if such a work ever existed, 
as Hilgenfeld contended; nor merely a “half-apologetic,” as Harnack 
and Dobschuetz described it; but even more than Geffcken considered 
it, a forerunner, as it were, of the apologies, though not directly used by 
them. It is a Christian apology in the true sense of the word—an 

1 Cf. Sibyl, V, 143,159; Geffcken, Zweigr. Apol., p. 111; Apoc. 17:5; 18:10; Case, 
The Revelation of John, 1919, on these passages. 


♦ 


COMMENTARY ON THE FRAGMENTS 


81 


a pol°gy rather than a polemic, not defending Christianity against 
hostile adversaries, but calmly reasoning with an audience which, 
though not yet Christian, was willing to lend an unprejudiced ear to what 
Christianity had to say for itself; an audience in which the Jewish 
element was quite as prominent as the Hellenic, yet not Jewish of the 
Pharisaic or rabbinic sort, nor Hellenic so preoccupied with mythology 
as Aristides, Justin, Tatian, and Athenagoras addressed; but rather a 
Jewish-Hellenistic audience of the Alexandrine type, prepared for 
something better than animal or angel worship, inclined to believe in 
one God who created and governs all things for man’s sake, who 
forgives sin committed in ignorance if the offender prepares his heart 
by repentance; an audience reaching out after God and seeking salva¬ 
tion, such as the Preaching promised. Such an audience there was 
in Egypt in the first Christian century, such preaching was being done 
there by men like Apollos and the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas. 
The name, probably later attached to the Preaching, reveals its relation 
to the Petrine literature, that literature which began to appear, probably, 
in Domitian’s reign, if not earlier; appealing to the authority of the 
Prince of the Apostles; affixing that authority to the Roman church 
through the medium of Peter’s death and Mark’s work and presence 
there; producing a Gospel in Mark’s name and Peter’s authority, the 
Epistles to the Hebrews, I Peter (later so-called), and (Clement) I 
Corinthians; collecting the stories which supplied material for Acts, 
chapters 1-12. 

The Apocalypse of Peter was embodied in this collection of Petrine 
Literature, and II Peter appeared to claim I Peter, the Apocalypse, 
and Preaching, and to promulgate the Gospel or Acts of Peter. 

Thus was Christian apologetic propitiously born at Alexandria, 
toward the end of the first century a.d., of Jewish and Christian parents, 
and was given the name of the chief of Christian apostles. Growing up 
in the Graeco-Roman world, struggling with every type of opponent, 
it contributed much toward the evolution of Christian theology, itself 
being the product of struggle and the embodiment and vigorous out¬ 
growth of the strongest and healthiest flesh and blood of the philosophies 
and religions of generations past. 


















* 




















' 









































. 



■ 






















INDEX 


Angels, Jewish worship of, 25, 28 

Apologetic, beginning of Christian, 47 f.; 
difference between, and genetic liter¬ 
ature, 56 f. 

Apostle, 1, 34 f. 

Aristides, K.P. in Apology of, 3, 78 

Barlaam and Joasaph romance, 3, 76 
Barnabas, Epistle of, 79 f. 

Bousset, W., on relation of Jewish and 
Christian apologetic, 7, 77 f. 

Case, S. J., hypothesis, 69 f. 

Clement, Alex., fragments of K.P. apud, 
1, 2 

Clementina, 44, 71, 73 
Clementine, homilies and recognitions, 
43 , 72 f. 

Collomp, on element’s sources, 7, 77 f. 

Corinthians, First Epistle to (of Clement), 
63 f. 

Cyprian (pseudo), De rebapti. fragment, 75 
Didaskalia, 75 

Dobschuetz, E. von, on K.P., 5 ff. 
“Doctrina Petri,” 74 
Dodwell, on K.P., 4 

Faith, 26 f., 36 f., 42, 50 f. 

Feasts and fasts, 1, 28 

Friedlaender, Moriz, on the relation of 
Jewish and Christian apologetic, 48 

Geffcken, J., on the origin of Christian 
apologetic, 7 

God, “One God,” 16, 21. See Trinity 
“Gods,” idol and animal worship, 21, 25 
Gregory, Naz., fragments apud , 74 

Harnack, A., on K.P., 5 
Hebrews, 63 f. 

Hermetic literature, its influence on 
Christian, 14 f. 

Hilgenfeld, on K.P., 4 

Jewish worship, 25 f. 

Josephus, 53 f. 


Lactantius, fragment apud , 75 

Law, in Greek and Jewish philosophy, 8; 
in New Testament, 10; in Philo, n; 
in Justin, 25 

Law, Jewish, regard for among Romans, 
9 f* 

Leontius, Hiera, 74 f. 

Logos, in Greek and Jewish philosophy, 
8-16; in New Testament, 15 

Mark, 67 f. 

New, “third race of Christians,” 2, 29 f. 
Oecomenius, 75 

Optatus, “Epistola Petri” apud , 74 
Origen, fragments of K.P. apud , 3, 74 

Pantenus, 77 
“Parousia,” 3, 38, 42 
“Person” (Prosopon), 28 
Peter, Acts of, 43; Epistles of, 43, 64 f., 
Gospel of, 43, 61; Apocalypse of, 44 

Peter, Alex., 74 
Petrine literature, 42, 62 f. 

Philo, Alex., “Law” and “Logos” apud , 
8; apologetic, 54 f. 

Praedicatio, Petri, 73 f. 

Preaching. See Kerygma 
Prophecy, fulfilled in Jesus, 39 
Prophets, “Logos” apud , 9 

“Repentance,” 3, 25, 29, 32 f., 50 f. 
Robinson, J. A., on K.P., 5 
Roman church, 51 f. 

“Sabbath,” which is called “First,” 29 
“Scripture,” 3, 36 f. 

Shepherd of Hermas, 79 
Sibyl “Law” apud , 10 
Sin, forgiveness of, 3, 25, 32 f. 

Trinity, 15, 28. See God 
“Twelve years,” stay of the apostles in 
Jerusalem, 33 f., 69 

Wendland, P., on the Therapeutae, 7 

Zahn, Theodor, on K.P., 5 


Kerygma , defined, 60 
“Kerygmata,” of Peter, 71 


83 

























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